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1. Factorization and pseudofactorization of weighted graphs

   Kristin Sheridan, Joseph Berleant (July 2023, Discrete applied mathematics)

   For unweighted graphs, finding isometric embeddings of a graph G is closely related to decompositions of G into Cartesian products of smaller graphs. When G is isomorphic to a Cartesian graph product, we call the factors of this product a factorization of G. When G is isomorphic to an isometric subgraph of a Cartesian graph product, we call those factors a pseudofactorization of G. Prior work has shown that an unweighted graph’s pseudofactorization can be used to generate a canonical isometric embedding into a product of the smallest possible pseudofactors. However, for arbitrary weighted graphs, which represent a richer variety of metric spaces, methods for finding isometric embeddings or determining their existence remain elusive, and indeed pseudofactorization and factorization have not previously been extended to this context. In this work, we address the problem of finding the factorization and pseudofactorization of a weighted graph G, where G satisfies the property that every edge constitutes a shortest path between its endpoints. We term such graphs minimal graphs, noting that every graph can be made minimal by removing edges not affecting its path metric. We generalize pseudofactorization and factorization to minimal graphs and develop new proof techniques that extend the previously proposed algorithms due to Graham and Winkler [Graham and Winkler, ’85] and Feder [Feder, ’92] for pseudofactorization and factorization of unweighted graphs. We show that any n-vertex, m-edge graph with positive integer edge weights can be factored in O(m2) time, plus the time to find all pairs shortest paths (APSP) distances in a weighted graph, resulting in an overall running time of O(m2+n2 log log n) time. We also show that a pseudofactorization for such a graph can be computed in O(mn) time, plus the time to solve APSP, resulting in an O(mn + n2 log log n) running time. 

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2. Complexity of Ck-Coloring in Hereditary Classes of Graphs

   Chudnovsky, M.; Huang, S.; Rzazewski, P.; Spirkl, S.; and Zhong, M. (September 2019, European Symposium on Algorithms)

   For a graph F, a graph G is F-free if it does not contain an induced subgraph isomorphic to F. For two graphs G and H, an H-coloring of G is a mapping f : V (G) → V (H) such that for every edge uv ∈ E(G) it holds that f(u)f(v) ∈ E(H). We are interested in the complexity of the problem H-Coloring, which asks for the existence of an H-coloring of an input graph G. In particular, we consider H-Coloring of F-free graphs, where F is a fixed graph and H is an odd cycle of length at least 5. This problem is closely related to the well known open problem of determining the complexity of 3-Coloring of Pt-free graphs. We show that for every odd k ≥ 5 the Ck-Coloring problem, even in the precoloring-extension variant, can be solved in polynomial time in P9-free graphs. On the other hand, we prove that the extension version of Ck-Coloring is NP-complete for F-free graphs whenever some component of F is not a subgraph of a subdivided claw. 

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3. A New Connection Between Node and Edge Depth Robust Graphs

   https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2021.64  

   Blocki, J; Cinkoske, M. (January 2021, ITCS 2021)

   Given a directed acyclic graph (DAG) G=(V,E), we say that G is (e,d)-depth-robust (resp. (e,d)-edge-depth-robust) if for any set S⊆V (resp. S⊆E) of at most |S|≤e nodes (resp. edges) the graph G−S contains a directed path of length d. While edge-depth-robust graphs are potentially easier to construct, many applications in cryptography require node depth-robust graphs with small indegree. We create a graph reduction that transforms an (e,d)-edge-depth-robust graph with m edges into a (e/2,d)-depth-robust graph with O(m) nodes and constant indegree. One immediate consequence of this result is the first construction of a provably (nloglognlogn,nlogn(logn)loglogn)-depth-robust graph with constant indegree. Our reduction crucially relies on ST-robust graphs, a new graph property we introduce which may be of independent interest. We say that a directed, acyclic graph with n inputs and n outputs is (k1,k2)-ST-robust if we can remove any k1 nodes and there exists a subgraph containing at least k2 inputs and k2 outputs such that each of the k2 inputs is connected to all of the k2 outputs. If the graph if (k1,n−k1)-ST-robust for all k1≤n we say that the graph is maximally ST-robust. We show how to construct maximally ST-robust graphs with constant indegree and O(n) nodes. Given a family M of ST-robust graphs and an arbitrary (e,d)-edge-depth-robust graph G we construct a new constant-indegree graph Reduce(G,M) by replacing each node in G with an ST-robust graph from M. We also show that ST-robust graphs can be used to construct (tight) proofs-of-space and (asymptotically) improved wide-block labeling functions. 

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4. Induced subgraphs and tree decompositions XII. Grid theorem for pinched graphs

   https://doi.org/10.5802/igt.6  

   Alecu, Bogdan; Chudnovsky, Maria; Hajebi, Sepehr; Spirkl, Sophie (January 2025, Innovations in Graph Theory)

   Given c ∈ N, we say a graph G is c-pinched if G does not contain an induced subgraph consisting of c cycles, all going through a single common vertex and otherwise pairwise disjoint and with no edges between them. What can be said about the structure of c-pinched graphs? For instance, 1-pinched graphs are exactly graphs of treewidth 1. However, bounded treewidth for c > 1 is immediately seen to be a false hope because complete graphs, complete bipartite graphs, subdivided walls and line graphs of subdivided walls are all examples of 2-pinched graphs with arbitrarily large treewidth. There is even a fifth obstruction for larger values of c, discovered by Pohoata and later independently by Davies, consisting of 3-pinched graphs with unbounded treewidth and no large induced subgraph isomorphic to any of the first four obstructions. We fuse the above five examples into a grid-type theorem fully describing the unavoidable induced subgraphs of pinched graphs with large treewidth. More precisely, we prove that for every c ∈ N, a c-pinched graph G has large treewidth if and only if G contains one of the following as an induced subgraph: a large complete graph, a large complete bipartite graph, a subdivision of a large wall, the line graph of a subdivision of a large wall, or a large graph from the Pohoata-Davies construction. Our main result also generalizes to an extension of pinched graphs where the lengths of excluded cycles are lower-bounded. 

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5. Induced subgraphs and tree decompositions III. Three-path-configurations and logarithmic treewidth

   https://doi.org/10.19086/aic.2022.6  

   Chudnovsky, Maria; Abrishami, Tara; Hajebi, Sepehr; Spirkl, Sophie (September 2022, Advances in Combinatorics)

   A _theta_ is a graph consisting of two non-adjacent vertices and three internally disjoint paths between them, each of length at least two. For a family $$\mathcal{H}$$ of graphs, we say a graph $$G$$ is $$\mathcal{H}$$-_free_ if no induced subgraph of $$G$$ is isomorphic to a member of $$\mathcal{H}$$. We prove a conjecture of Sintiari and Trotignon, that there exists an absolute constant $$c$$ for which every (theta, triangle)-free graph $$G$$ has treewidth at most $$c\log (|V(G)|)$$. A construction by Sintiari and Trotignon shows that this bound is asymptotically best possible, and (theta, triangle)-free graphs comprise the first known hereditary class of graphs with arbitrarily large yet logarithmic treewidth.Our main result is in fact a generalization of the above conjecture, that treewidth is at most logarithmic in $|V(G)|$ for every graph $$G$$ excluding the so-called _three-path-configurations_ as well as a fixed complete graph. It follows that several NP-hard problems such as Stable Set, Vertex Cover, Dominating Set and $$k$$-Coloring (for fixed $$k$$) admit polynomial time algorithms in graphs excluding the three-path-configurations and a fixed complete graph. 

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