arXiv subjects

Marcin Briański

Publications and source records attributed to Marcin Briański.

16 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Defective and Clustered Colouring of Graphs with Given Girth

The defective chromatic number of a graph class $\mathcal{G}$ is the minimum integer $k$ such that for some integer $d$, every graph in $\mathcal{G}$ is $k$-colourable such that each monochromatic component has maximum degree at most $d$. Similarly, the clustered chromatic number of a graph class $\mathcal{G}$ is the minimum integer $k$ such that for some integer $c$, every graph in $\mathcal{G}$ is $k$-colourable such that each monochromatic component has at most $c$ vertices. This paper determines or establishes bounds on the defective and clustered chromatic numbers of graphs with given girth in minor-closed classes defined by the following parameters: Hadwiger number, treewidth, pathwidth, treedepth, circumference, and feedback vertex number. One striking result is that for any integer $k$, for the class of triangle-free graphs with treewidth $k$, the defective chromatic number, clustered chromatic number and chromatic number are all equal. The same result holds for graphs with treedepth $k$, and generalises for graphs with no $K_p$ subgraph.

math.CO↗

arXiv2025

On Integer Programs That Look Like Paths

Solving integer programs of the form $\min \{\mathbf{x} \mid A\mathbf{x} = \mathbf{b}, \mathbf{l} \leq \mathbf{x} \leq \mathbf{u}, \mathbf{x} \in \mathbb{Z}^n \}$ is, in general, $\mathsf{NP}$-hard. Hence, great effort has been put into identifying subclasses of integer programs that are solvable in polynomial or $\mathsf{FPT}$ time. A common scheme for many of these integer programs is a star-like structure of the constraint matrix. The arguably simplest form that is not a star is a path. We study integer programs where the constraint matrix $A$ has such a path-like structure: every non-zero coefficient appears in at most two consecutive constraints. We prove that even if all coefficients of $A$ are bounded by 8, deciding the feasibility of such integer programs is $\mathsf{NP}$-hard via a reduction from 3-SAT. Given the existence of efficient algorithms for integer programs with star-like structures and a closely related pattern where the sum of absolute values is column-wise bounded by 2 (hence, there are at most two non-zero entries per column of size at most 2), this hardness result is surprising.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2025

Burling graphs in graphs with large chromatic number

A graph class is $χ$-bounded if the only way to force large chromatic number in graphs from the class is by forming a large clique. In the 1970s, Erdős conjectured that intersection graphs of straight-line segments in the plane are $χ$-bounded, but this was disproved by Pawlik et al. (2014), who showed another way to force large chromatic number in this class -- by triangle-free graphs $B_k$ with $χ(B_k)=k$ constructed by Burling (1965). This also disproved the celebrated conjecture of Scott (1997) that classes of graphs excluding induced subdivisions of a fixed graph are $χ$-bounded. We prove that in broad classes of graphs excluding induced subdivisions of a fixed graph, including the increasingly more general classes of segment intersection graphs, string graphs, region intersection graphs, and hereditary classes of graphs with finite asymptotic dimension, large chromatic number can be forced only by large cliques or large graphs $B_k$. One corollary is that the hereditary closure of $\{B_k\colon k\geq 1\}$ forms a minimal hereditary graph class with unbounded chromatic number -- the second known graph class with this property after the class of complete graphs. Another corollary is that the decision variant of approximate coloring in the aforementioned graph classes can be solved in polynomial time by exhaustively searching for a sufficiently large clique or copy of $B_k$. We also discuss how our results along with some results of Chudnovsky, Scott, and Seymour on the existence of colorings can be turned into polynomial-time algorithms for the search variant of approximate coloring in string graphs (with intersection model in the input) and other aforementioned graph classes. Such an algorithm has not yet been known for any graph class that is not $χ$-bounded.

math.CO↗

arXiv2025

Boolean dimension of a Boolean lattice

For every integer $n$ with $n \geq 6$, we prove that the Boolean dimension of a poset consisting of all the subsets of $\{1,\dots,n\}$ equipped with the inclusion relation is strictly less than $n$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2024

On high genus extensions of Negami's conjecture

Negami's famous planar cover conjecture is equivalent to the statement that a connected graph can be embedded in the projective plane if and only if it has a projective planar cover. In 1999, Hliněný proposed extending this conjecture to higher genus non-orientable surfaces. In this paper, we put forward a natural extension that encompasses orientable surfaces as well; for every compact surface $Σ$, a connected graph $G$ has a finite cover embeddable in $Σ$ if and only if $G$ is embeddable in a surface covered by $Σ$. As evidence toward this, we prove that for every surface $Σ$, the connected graphs with a finite cover embeddable in $Σ$ have bounded Euler genus. Moreover, we show that these extensions of Negami's conjecture are decidable for every compact surface of sufficiently large Euler genus, surpassing what is known for Negami's original conjecture. We also prove the natural analogue for countable graphs embeddable into a compact (orientable) surface. More precisely, we prove that a connected countable graph $G$ has a finite ply cover that embeds into a compact (orientable) surface if and only if $G$ embeds into a compact (orientable) surface. Our most general theorem, from which these results are derived, is that there is a constant $c>0$ such that for every surface $Σ$, there exists a decreasing function $p_Σ:\mathbb{N} \to \mathbb{N}$ with $\lim_{g\to \infty}p_Σ(g) =0$ such that every finite cover embeddable in $Σ$ of any connected graph with Euler genus $g\ge c$ has ply at most $p_Σ(g)$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2024

Excluding a clique or a biclique in graphs of bounded induced matching treewidth

For a tree decomposition $\mathcal{T}$ of a graph $G$, let $μ(\mathcal{T})$ denote the maximum size of an induced matching in $G$ with the property that some bag of $\mathcal{T}$ contains at least one endpoint of every edge of the matching. The induced matching treewidth of a graph $G$ is the minimum value of $μ(\mathcal{T})$ over all tree decompositions $\mathcal{T}$ of $G$. Classes of graphs with bounded induced matching treewidth admit polynomial-time algorithms for a number of problems, including INDEPENDENT SET, $k$-COLORING, ODD CYCLE TRANSVERSAL, and FEEDBACK VERTEX SET. In this paper, we focus on combinatorial properties of such classes. First, we show that graphs with bounded induced matching treewidth that exclude a fixed biclique as an induced subgraph have bounded tree-independence number, which is another well-studied parameter defined in terms of tree decompositions. This sufficient condition about excluding a biclique is also necessary, as bicliques have unbounded tree-independence number. Second, we show that graphs with bounded induced matching treewidth that exclude a fixed clique have bounded chromatic number, that is, classes of graphs with bounded induced matching treewidth are $χ$-bounded. The two results confirm two conjectures due to Lima et al. [ESA 2024].

math.CO↗

arXiv2024

Erdős-Pósa property of tripods in directed graphs

Let $D$ be a directed graphs with distinguished sets of sources $S\subseteq V(D)$ and sinks $T\subseteq V(D)$. A tripod in $D$ is a subgraph consisting of the union of two $S$-$T$-paths that have distinct start-vertices and the same end-vertex, and are disjoint apart from sharing a suffix. We prove that tripods in directed graphs exhibit the Erdős-Pósa property. More precisely, there is a function $f\colon \mathbb{N}\to \mathbb{N}$ such that for every digraph $D$ with sources $S$ and sinks $T$, if $D$ does not contain $k$ vertex-disjoint tripods, then there is a set of at most $f(k)$ vertices that meets all the tripods in $D$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2024

Branch-depth is minor closure of contraction-deletion-depth

The notion of branch-depth for matroids was introduced by DeVos, Kwon and Oum as the matroid analogue of the tree-depth of graphs. The contraction-deletion-depth, another tree-depth like parameter of matroids, is the number of recursive steps needed to decompose a matroid by contractions and deletions to single elements. Any matroid with contraction-deletion-depth at most d has branch-depth at most d. However, the two notions are not functionally equivalent as contraction-deletion-depth of matroids with branch-depth two can be arbitrarily large. We show that the two notions are functionally equivalent for representable matroids when minor closures are considered. Namely, an F-representable matroid has small branch-depth if and only if it is a minor of an F-representable matroid with small contraction-deletion-depth. This implies that any class of F-representable matroids has bounded branch-depth if and only if it is a subclass of the minor closure of a class of F-representable matroids with bounded contraction-deletion-depth.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

Pathwidth vs cocircumference

The {\em circumference} of a graph $G$ with at least one cycle is the length of a longest cycle in $G$. A classic result of Birmelé (2003) states that the treewidth of $G$ is at most its circumference minus $1$. In case $G$ is $2$-connected, this upper bound also holds for the pathwidth of $G$; in fact, even the treedepth of $G$ is upper bounded by its circumference (Briański, Joret, Majewski, Micek, Seweryn, Sharma; 2023). In this paper, we study whether similar bounds hold when replacing the circumference of $G$ by its {\em cocircumference}, defined as the largest size of a {\em bond} in $G$, an inclusion-wise minimal set of edges $F$ such that $G-F$ has more components than $G$. In matroidal terms, the cocircumference of $G$ is the circumference of the bond matroid of $G$. Our first result is the following `dual' version of Birmelé's theorem: The treewidth of a graph $G$ is at most its cocircumference. Our second and main result is an upper bound of $3k-2$ on the pathwidth of a $2$-connected graph $G$ with cocircumference $k$. Contrary to circumference, no such bound holds for the treedepth of $G$. Our two upper bounds are best possible up to a constant factor.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

Treedepth vs circumference

The circumference of a graph $G$ is the length of a longest cycle in $G$, or $+\infty$ if $G$ has no cycle. Birmelé (2003) showed that the treewidth of a graph $G$ is at most its circumference minus $1$. We strengthen this result for $2$-connected graphs as follows: If $G$ is $2$-connected, then its treedepth is at most its circumference. The bound is best possible and improves on an earlier quadratic upper bound due to Marshall and Wood (2015).

math.CO↗

arXiv2022

Separating polynomial $χ$-boundedness from $χ$-boundedness

Extending the idea from the recent paper by Carbonero, Hompe, Moore, and Spirkl, for every function $f\colon\mathbb{N}\to\mathbb{N}\cup\{\infty\}$ with $f(1)=1$ and $f(n)\geq\binom{3n+1}{3}$, we construct a hereditary class of graphs $\mathcal{G}$ such that the maximum chromatic number of a graph in $\mathcal{G}$ with clique number $n$ is equal to $f(n)$ for every $n\in\mathbb{N}$. In particular, we prove that there exist hereditary classes of graphs that are $χ$-bounded but not polynomially $χ$-bounded.

math.CO↗

arXiv2021

Introducing Structure to Expedite Quantum Search

We present a novel quantum algorithm for solving the unstructured search problem with one marked element. Our algorithm allows generating quantum circuits that use asymptotically fewer additional quantum gates than the famous Grover's algorithm and may be successfully executed on NISQ devices. We prove that our algorithm is optimal in the total number of elementary gates up to a multiplicative constant. As many NP-hard problems are not in fact unstructured, we also describe the \emph{partial uncompute} technique which exploits the oracle structure and allows a significant reduction in the number of elementary gates required to find the solution. Combining these results allows us to use asymptotically smaller number of elementary gates than the Grover's algorithm in various applications, keeping the number of queries to the oracle essentially the same. We show how the results can be applied to solve hard combinatorial problems, for example Unique k-SAT. Additionally, we show how to asymptotically reduce the number of elementary gates required to solve the unstructured search problem with multiple marked elements.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Reconfiguring Independent Sets on Interval Graphs

We study reconfiguration of independent sets in interval graphs under the token sliding rule. We show that if two independent sets of size $k$ are reconfigurable in an $n$-vertex interval graph, then there is a reconfiguration sequence of length $\mathcal{O}(k\cdot n^2)$. We also provide a construction in which the shortest reconfiguration sequence is of length $Ω(k^2\cdot n)$. As a counterpart to these results, we also establish that $\textsf{Independent Set Reconfiguration}$ is PSPACE-hard on incomparability graphs, of which interval graphs are a special case.

math.CO↗

arXiv2021

Benchmarking 16-element quantum search algorithms on superconducting quantum processors

We present experimental results on running 4-qubit unstructured search on IBM quantum processors. Our best attempt attained probability of success around 24.5%. We try several algorithms and use the most recent developments in quantum search to reduce the number of entangling gates that are currently considered the main source of errors in quantum computations. Comparing theoretical expectations of an algorithm performance with the actual data, we explore the hardware limits, showing sharp, phase-transition-like degradation of performance on quantum processors. We conclude that it is extremely important to design hardware-aware algorithms and to include any other low level optimizations on NISQ devices.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Erdős-Hajnal properties for powers of sparse graphs

We prove that for every nowhere dense class of graphs $\mathcal{C}$, positive integer $d$, and $\varepsilon>0$, the following holds: in every $n$-vertex graph $G$ from $\mathcal{C}$ one can find two disjoint vertex subsets $A,B\subseteq V(G)$ such that $|A|\geq (1/2-\varepsilon)\cdot n$ and $|B|=Ω(n^{1-\varepsilon})$ and either $\operatorname{dist}(a,b)\leq d$ for all $a\in A$ and $b\in B$, or $\operatorname{dist}(a,b)>d$ for all $a\in A$ and $b\in B$. We also show some stronger variants of this statement, including a generalization to the setting of First-Order interpretations of nowhere dense graph classes.

math.CO↗

arXiv2020

A short note on graphs with long Thomason's chains

We present a family of 3-connected cubic planar Hamiltonian graphs with an exponential number of steps required by Thomason's algorithm. The base of the exponent is approximately $1.1812...$, which exceeds previous results in the area.

math.CO↗