arXiv subjects

Emily McMillon

Publications and source records attributed to Emily McMillon.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Hoffman-London graphs: When paths minimize $H$-colorings among trees

Given a graph $G$ and a target graph $H$, an $H$-coloring of $G$ is an adjacency-preserving vertex map from $G$ to $H$. The number of $H$-colorings of $G$, $\hom(G,H)$, has been studied for many classes of $G$ and $H$. In particular, extremal questions of maximizing and minimizing $\hom(G,H)$ have been considered when $H$ is a clique or $G$ is a tree. In this paper, we develop a new technique using automorphisms of $H$ to show that $\hom(T,H)$ is minimized by paths as $T$ varies over trees on a fixed number of vertices. We introduce the term Hoffman-London to refer to graphs that are minimal in this sense. In particular, we define an automorphic similarity matrix which is used to compute $\hom(T,H)$ and give matrix conditions under which $H$ is Hoffman-London. We then apply this technique to identify several families of graphs that are Hoffman-London, including loop threshold graphs and some with applications in statistical physics (e.g. the Widom-Rowlinson model). By combining our approach with a few other observations, we fully characterize the minimizing trees for all graphs $H$ on three or fewer vertices.

math.CO↗

arXiv2025

Hierarchical Quasi-cyclic Codes from Reed-Solomon and Polynomial Evaluation Codes

We introduce the first example of algebraically constructed hierarchical quasi-cyclic codes. These codes are built from Reed-Solomon codes using a 1964 construction of superimposed codes by Kautz and Singleton. We show both the number of levels in the hierarchy and the index of these Reed-Solomon derived codes are determined by the field size. We show that this property also holds for certain additional classes of polynomial evaluation codes. We provide explicit code parameters and properties as well as some additional bounds on parameters such as rank and distance. In particular, starting with Reed-Solomon codes of dimension $k=2$ yields hierarchical quasi-cyclic codes with Tanner graphs of girth 6. We present a table of small code parameters and note that some of these codes meet the best known minimum distance for binary codes, with the additional hierarchical quasi-cyclic structure. We draw connections to similar constructions in the literature, but importantly, while existing literature on related codes is largely simulation-based, we present a novel algebraic approach to determining new bounds on parameters of these codes.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2025

Pseudocodewords of quantum, quasi-cyclic, and spatially-coupled LDPC codes: a fundamental cone perspective

While low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes are near capacity-achieving when paired with iterative decoders, these decoders may not output a codeword due to the existence of pseudocodewords. Thus, pseudocodewords have been studied to give insight into the performance of modern decoders including iterative and linear programming decoders. These pseudocodewords are found to be dependent on the parity-check matrix of the code and the particular decoding algorithm used. In this paper, we consider LP decoding, which has been linked to graph cover decoding, providing functions which capture these pseudocodewords. In particular, we analyze the underlying structure of pseudocodewords from quantum stabilizer codes that arise from LP decoding, quasi-cyclic LDPC codes, and spatially-coupled LDPC codes.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2025

Long paths need not minimize $H$-colorings among trees

Given a graph $G$ and a target graph $H$, an $H$-coloring of $G$ is an adjacency-preserving vertex map from $G$ to $H$. By appropriate choice of $H$, these colorings can express, for instance, the independent sets or proper vertex colorings of $G$. Sidorenko proved that for any $H$, the $n$-vertex star admits at least as many $H$-colorings as any other $n$-vertex tree, but the minimization question remains open in general. For many graphs $H$, path graphs are among the trees with the fewest $H$-colorings, but work of Leontovich and subsequently Csikvári and Lin shows that there is a graph $E_7$ on seven vertices and a target graph $H$ for which there are strictly fewer $H$-colorings of $E_7$ than of the path on seven vertices. We introduce a new strategy for enumerating homomorphisms from path-like trees to highly symmetric target graphs that allows us to make the previous observations completely explicit and extend them to infinitely many $n$ beyond $n=7$. In particular, we exhibit a target graph $H$ with the property that for each sufficiently large $n$, there is a tree $E_n$ on $n$ vertices that admits strictly fewer $H$-colorings than the path on $n$ vertices.

math.CO↗

arXiv2025

Characterizing Graphs as Algebraic Squares

Graphs that are squares under the gluing algebra arise in the study of homomorphism density inequalities such as Sidorenko's conjecture. Recent work has focused on these homomorphism density applications. This paper takes a new perspective and focuses on the graph properties of arbitrary square graphs, not only those relevant to homomorphism conjectures and theorems. We develop a set of necessary and/or sufficient conditions for a graph to be square. We apply these conditions to categorize several classical families of graphs as square or not. In addition, we create infinite families of square graphs by proving that joins and Cartesian, direct, strong, and lexicographic products of square graphs with arbitrary graphs are square.

math.CO↗

arXiv2025

A Combinatorial Approach to Avoiding Weak Keys in the BIKE Cryptosystem

Bit Flipping Key Encapsulation (BIKE) is a code-based cryptosystem that was considered in Round 4 of the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization process. It is based on quasi-cyclic moderate-density parity-check (QC-MDPC) codes paired with an iterative decoder. While (low-density) parity-check codes have been shown to perform well in practice, their capabilities are governed by the code's graphical representation and the choice of decoder rather than the traditional code parameters, making it difficult to determine the decoder failure rate (DFR). Moreover, decoding failures have been demonstrated to lead to attacks that recover the BIKE private key. In this paper, we demonstrate a strong correlation between weak keys and $4$-cycles in their associated Tanner graphs. We give concrete ways to enumerate the number of 4-cycles in a BIKE key and use these results to present a filtering algorithm that will filter BIKE keys with large numbers of 4-cycles. These results also apply to more general parity check codes.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2024

Parity-check Codes from Disjunct Matrices

The matrix representations of linear codes have been well-studied for use as disjunct matrices. However, no connection has previously been made between the properties of disjunct matrices and the parity-check codes obtained from them. This paper makes this connection for the first time. We provide some fundamental results on parity-check codes from general disjunct matrices (in particular, a minimum distance bound). We then consider three specific constructions of disjunct matrices and provide parameters of their corresponding parity-check codes including rate, distance, girth, and density. We show that, by choosing the correct parameters, the codes we construct have the best possible error-correction performance after one round of bit-flipping decoding with regard to a modified version of Gallager's bit-flipping decoding algorithm.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2024

Toward Quantum CSS-T Codes from Sparse Matrices

CSS-T codes were recently introduced as quantum error-correcting codes that respect a transversal gate. A CSS-T code depends on a pair $(C_1, C_2)$ of binary linear codes $C_1$ and $C_2$ that satisfy certain conditions. We prove that $C_1$ and $C_2$ form a CSS-T pair if and only if $C_2 \subset \operatorname{Hull}(C_1) \cap \operatorname{Hull}(C_1^2)$, where the hull of a code is the intersection of the code with its dual. We show that if $(C_1,C_2)$ is a CSS-T pair, and the code $C_2$ is degenerated on $\{i\}$, meaning that the $i^{th}$-entry is zero for all the elements in $C_2$, then the pair of punctured codes $(C_1|_i,C_2|_i)$ is also a CSS-T pair. Finally, we provide Magma code based on our results and quasi-cyclic codes as a step toward finding quantum LDPC or LDGM CSS-T codes computationally.

cs.IT↗