Which graph motif parameters count?

Abstract

For a fixed graph H, the function #IndSub(H,*) maps graphs G to the count of induced H-copies in G; this function obviously "counts something" in that it has a combinatorial interpretation. Linear combinations of such functions are called graph motif parameters and have recently received significant attention in counting complexity after a seminal paper by Curticapean, Dell and Marx (STOC'17). We show that, among linear combinations of functions #IndSub(H,*) involving only graphs H without isolated vertices, precisely those with positive integer coefficients maintain a combinatorial interpretation. It is important to note that graph motif parameters can be nonnegative for all inputs G, even when some coefficients are negative. Formally, we show that evaluating any graph motif parameter with a negative coefficient is impossible in an oracle variant of #P, where an implicit graph is accessed by oracle queries. Our proof follows the classification of the relativizing closure properties of #P by Hertrampf, Vollmer, and Wagner (SCT'95) and the framework developed by Ikenmeyer and Pak (STOC'22), but our application of the required Ramsey theorem turns out to be more subtle, as graphs do not have the required Ramsey property. Our techniques generalize from graphs to relational structures, including colored graphs. Vastly generalizing this, we introduce motif parameters over categories that count occurrences of sub-objects in the category. We then prove a general dichotomy theorem that characterizes which such parameters have a combinatorial interpretation. Using known results in Ramsey theory for categories, we obtain a dichotomy for motif parameters of finite vector spaces as well as parameter sets.