arXiv subjects

Martin Grohe

Publications and source records attributed to Martin Grohe.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2014

Deciding first-order properties of nowhere dense graphs

Nowhere dense graph classes, introduced by Nesetril and Ossona de Mendez, form a large variety of classes of "sparse graphs" including the class of planar graphs, actually all classes with excluded minors, and also bounded degree graphs and graph classes of bounded expansion. We show that deciding properties of graphs definable in first-order logic is fixed-parameter tractable on nowhere dense graph classes. At least for graph classes closed under taking subgraphs, this result is optimal: it was known before that for all classes C of graphs closed under taking subgraphs, if deciding first-order properties of graphs in C is fixed-parameter tractable, then C must be nowhere dense (under a reasonable complexity theoretic assumption). As a by-product, we give an algorithmic construction of sparse neighbourhood covers for nowhere dense graphs. This extends and improves previous constructions of neighbourhood covers for graph classes with excluded minors. At the same time, our construction is considerably simpler than those. Our proofs are based on a new game-theoretic characterisation of nowhere dense graphs that allows for a recursive version of locality-based algorithms on these classes. On the logical side, we prove a "rank-preserving" version of Gaifman's locality theorem.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2013

L-Recursion and a new Logic for Logarithmic Space

We extend first-order logic with counting by a new operator that allows it to formalise a limited form of recursion which can be evaluated in logarithmic space. The resulting logic LREC has a data complexity in LOGSPACE, and it defines LOGSPACE-complete problems like deterministic reachability and Boolean formula evaluation. We prove that LREC is strictly more expressive than deterministic transitive closure logic with counting and incomparable in expressive power with symmetric transitive closure logic STC and transitive closure logic (with or without counting). LREC is strictly contained in fixed-point logic with counting FPC. We also study an extension LREC= of LREC that has nicer closure properties and is more expressive than both LREC and STC, but is still contained in FPC and has a data complexity in LOGSPACE. Our main results are that LREC captures LOGSPACE on the class of directed trees and that LREC= captures LOGSPACE on the class of interval graphs.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2012

Where First-Order and Monadic Second-Order Logic Coincide

We study on which classes of graphs first-order logic (FO) and monadic second-order logic (MSO) have the same expressive power. We show that for all classes C of graphs that are closed under taking subgraphs, FO and MSO have the same expressive power on C if, and only if, C has bounded tree depth. Tree depth is a graph invariant that measures the similarity of a graph to a star in a similar way that tree width measures the similarity of a graph to a tree. For classes just closed under taking induced subgraphs, we show an analogous result for guarded second-order logic (GSO), the variant of MSO that not only allows quantification over vertex sets but also over edge sets. A key tool in our proof is a Feferman-Vaught-type theorem that is constructive and still works for unbounded partitions.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2011

Randomisation and Derandomisation in Descriptive Complexity Theory

We study probabilistic complexity classes and questions of derandomisation from a logical point of view. For each logic L we introduce a new logic BPL, bounded error probabilistic L, which is defined from L in a similar way as the complexity class BPP, bounded error probabilistic polynomial time, is defined from PTIME. Our main focus lies on questions of derandomisation, and we prove that there is a query which is definable in BPFO, the probabilistic version of first-order logic, but not in Cinf, finite variable infinitary logic with counting. This implies that many of the standard logics of finite model theory, like transitive closure logic and fixed-point logic, both with and without counting, cannot be derandomised. Similarly, we present a query on ordered structures which is definable in BPFO but not in monadic second-order logic, and a query on additive structures which is definable in BPFO but not in FO. The latter of these queries shows that certain uniform variants of AC0 (bounded-depth polynomial sized circuits) cannot be derandomised. These results are in contrast to the general belief that most standard complexity classes can be derandomised. Finally, we note that BPIFP+C, the probabilistic version of fixed-point logic with counting, captures the complexity class BPP, even on unordered structures.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2011

Counting Homomorphisms and Partition Functions

Homomorphisms between relational structures are not only fundamental mathematical objects, but are also of great importance in an applied computational context. Indeed, constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs), a wide class of algorithmic problems that occur in many different areas of computer science such as artificial intelligence or database theory, may be viewed as asking for homomorphisms between two relational structures [FedVar98]. In a logical setting, homomorphisms may be viewed as witnesses for positive primitive formulas in a relational language. As we shall see, homomorphisms, or more precisely the numbers of homomorphisms between two structures, are also related to a fundamental computational problem of statistical physics. In this article, we are concerned with the complexity of counting homomorphisms from a given structure A to a fixed structure B. Actually, we are mainly interested in a generalization of this problem to weighted homomorphisms (or partition functions). We almost exclusively focus on graphs. The first part of the article is a short survey of what is known about the problem. In the second part, we give a proof of a theorem due to Bulatov and the first author of this paper [BulGro05], which classifies the complexity of partition functions described by matrices with non-negative entries. The proof we give here is essentially the same as the original one, with a few shortcuts due to [Thu09], but it is phrased in a different, more graph theoretical language that may make it more accessible to most readers.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2010

Finding topological subgraphs is fixed-parameter tractable

We show that for every fixed undirected graph $H$, there is a $O(|V(G)|^3)$ time algorithm that tests, given a graph $G$, if $G$ contains $H$ as a topological subgraph (that is, a subdivision of $H$ is subgraph of $G$). This shows that topological subgraph testing is fixed-parameter tractable, resolving a longstanding open question of Downey and Fellows from 1992. As a corollary, for every $H$ we obtain an $O(|V(G)|^3)$ time algorithm that tests if there is an immersion of $H$ into a given graph $G$. This answers another open question raised by Downey and Fellows in 1992.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2010

Fixed-Point Definability and Polynomial Time on Chordal Graphs and Line Graphs

The question of whether there is a logic that captures polynomial time was formulated by Yuri Gurevich in 1988. It is still wide open and regarded as one of the main open problems in finite model theory and database theory. Partial results have been obtained for specific classes of structures. In particular, it is known that fixed-point logic with counting captures polynomial time on all classes of graphs with excluded minors. The introductory part of this paper is a short survey of the state-of-the-art in the quest for a logic capturing polynomial time. The main part of the paper is concerned with classes of graphs defined by excluding induced subgraphs. Two of the most fundamental such classes are the class of chordal graphs and the class of line graphs. We prove that capturing polynomial time on either of these classes is as hard as capturing it on the class of all graphs. In particular, this implies that fixed-point logic with counting does not capture polynomial time on these classes. Then we prove that fixed-point logic with counting does capture polynomial time on the class of all graphs that are both chordal and line graphs.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2009

A complexity dichotomy for partition functions with mixed signs

Partition functions, also known as homomorphism functions, form a rich family of graph invariants that contain combinatorial invariants such as the number of k-colourings or the number of independent sets of a graph and also the partition functions of certain "spin glass" models of statistical physics such as the Ising model. Building on earlier work by Dyer, Greenhill and Bulatov, Grohe, we completely classify the computational complexity of partition functions. Our main result is a dichotomy theorem stating that every partition function is either computable in polynomial time or #P-complete. Partition functions are described by symmetric matrices with real entries, and we prove that it is decidable in polynomial time in terms of the matrix whether a given partition function is in polynomial time or #P-complete. While in general it is very complicated to give an explicit algebraic or combinatorial description of the tractable cases, for partition functions described by a Hadamard matrices -- these turn out to be central in our proofs -- we obtain a simple algebraic tractability criterion, which says that the tractable cases are those "representable" by a quadratic polynomial over the field GF(2).

cs.CC↗

arXiv2009

The Complexity of Datalog on Linear Orders

We study the program complexity of datalog on both finite and infinite linear orders. Our main result states that on all linear orders with at least two elements, the nonemptiness problem for datalog is EXPTIME-complete. While containment of the nonemptiness problem in EXPTIME is known for finite linear orders and actually for arbitrary finite structures, it is not obvious for infinite linear orders. It sharply contrasts the situation on other infinite structures; for example, the datalog nonemptiness problem on an infinite successor structure is undecidable. We extend our upper bound results to infinite linear orders with constants. As an application, we show that the datalog nonemptiness problem on Allen's interval algebra is EXPTIME-complete.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2009

Enumerating Homomorphisms

The homomorphism problem for relational structures is an abstract way of formulating constraint satisfaction problems (CSP) and various problems in database theory. The decision version of the homomorphism problem received a lot of attention in literature; in particular, the way the graph-theoretical structure of the variables and constraints influences the complexity of the problem is intensively studied. Here we study the problem of enumerating all the solutions with polynomial delay from a similar point of view. It turns out that the enumeration problem behaves very differently from the decision version. We give evidence that it is unlikely that a characterization result similar to the decision version can be obtained. Nevertheless, we show nontrivial cases where enumeration can be done with polynomial delay.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2007

Randomized Computations on Large Data Sets: Tight Lower Bounds

We study the randomized version of a computation model (introduced by Grohe, Koch, and Schweikardt (ICALP'05); Grohe and Schweikardt (PODS'05)) that restricts random access to external memory and internal memory space. Essentially, this model can be viewed as a powerful version of a data stream model that puts no cost on sequential scans of external memory (as other models for data streams) and, in addition, (like other external memory models, but unlike streaming models), admits several large external memory devices that can be read and written to in parallel. We obtain tight lower bounds for the decision problems set equality, multiset equality, and checksort. More precisely, we show that any randomized one-sided-error bounded Monte Carlo algorithm for these problems must perform Omega(log N) random accesses to external memory devices, provided that the internal memory size is at most O(N^(1/4)/log N), where N denotes the size of the input data. From the lower bound on the set equality problem we can infer lower bounds on the worst case data complexity of query evaluation for the languages XQuery, XPath, and relational algebra on streaming data. More precisely, we show that there exist queries in XQuery, XPath, and relational algebra, such that any (randomized) Las Vegas algorithm that evaluates these queries must perform Omega(log N) random accesses to external memory devices, provided that the internal memory size is at most O(N^(1/4)/log N).

cs.DB↗

arXiv2006

Testing Graph Isomorphism in Parallel by Playing a Game

Our starting point is the observation that if graphs in a class C have low descriptive complexity in first order logic, then the isomorphism problem for C is solvable by a fast parallel algorithm (essentially, by a simple combinatorial algorithm known as the multidimensional Weisfeiler-Lehman algorithm). Using this approach, we prove that isomorphism of graphs of bounded treewidth is testable in TC1, answering an open question posed by Chandrasekharan. Furthermore, we obtain an AC1 algorithm for testing isomorphism of rotation systems (combinatorial specifications of graph embeddings). The AC1 upper bound was known before, but the fact that this bound can be achieved by the simple Weisfeiler-Lehman algorithm is new. Combined with other known results, it also yields a new AC1 isomorphism algorithm for planar graphs.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2006

The succinctness of first-order logic on linear orders

Succinctness is a natural measure for comparing the strength of different logics. Intuitively, a logic L_1 is more succinct than another logic L_2 if all properties that can be expressed in L_2 can be expressed in L_1 by formulas of (approximately) the same size, but some properties can be expressed in L_1 by (significantly) smaller formulas. We study the succinctness of logics on linear orders. Our first theorem is concerned with the finite variable fragments of first-order logic. We prove that: (i) Up to a polynomial factor, the 2- and the 3-variable fragments of first-order logic on linear orders have the same succinctness. (ii) The 4-variable fragment is exponentially more succinct than the 3-variable fragment. Our second main result compares the succinctness of first-order logic on linear orders with that of monadic second-order logic. We prove that the fragment of monadic second-order logic that has the same expressiveness as first-order logic on linear orders is non-elementarily more succinct than first-order logic.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2005

Model-Checking Problems as a Basis for Parameterized Intractability

Most parameterized complexity classes are defined in terms of a parameterized version of the Boolean satisfiability problem (the so-called weighted satisfiability problem). For example, Downey and Fellow's W-hierarchy is of this form. But there are also classes, for example, the A-hierarchy, that are more naturally characterised in terms of model-checking problems for certain fragments of first-order logic. Downey, Fellows, and Regan were the first to establish a connection between the two formalisms by giving a characterisation of the W-hierarchy in terms of first-order model-checking problems. We improve their result and then prove a similar correspondence between weighted satisfiability and model-checking problems for the A-hierarchy and the W^*-hierarchy. Thus we obtain very uniform characterisations of many of the most important parameterized complexity classes in both formalisms. Our results can be used to give new, simple proofs of some of the core results of structural parameterized complexity theory.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2005

Tight Lower Bounds for Query Processing on Streaming and External Memory Data

We study a clean machine model for external memory and stream processing. We show that the number of scans of the external data induces a strict hierarchy (as long as work space is sufficiently small, e.g., polylogarithmic in the size of the input). We also show that neither joins nor sorting are feasible if the product of the number $r(n)$ of scans of the external memory and the size $s(n)$ of the internal memory buffers is sufficiently small, e.g., of size $o(\sqrt[5]{n})$. We also establish tight bounds for the complexity of XPath evaluation and filtering.

cs.DB↗

arXiv2001

Fixed-parameter tractability, definability, and model checking

In this article, we study parameterized complexity theory from the perspective of logic, or more specifically, descriptive complexity theory. We propose to consider parameterized model-checking problems for various fragments of first-order logic as generic parameterized problems and show how this approach can be useful in studying both fixed-parameter tractability and intractability. For example, we establish the equivalence between the model-checking for existential first-order logic, the homomorphism problem for relational structures, and the substructure isomorphism problem. Our main tractability result shows that model-checking for first-order formulas is fixed-parameter tractable when restricted to a class of input structures with an excluded minor. On the intractability side, for every t >= 0 we prove an equivalence between model-checking for first-order formulas with t quantifier alternations and the parameterized halting problem for alternating Turing machines with t alternations. We discuss the close connection between this alternation hierarchy and Downey and Fellows' W-hierarchy. On a more abstract level, we consider two forms of definability, called Fagin definability and slicewise definability, that are appropriate for describing parameterized problems. We give a characterization of the class FPT of all fixed-parameter tractable problems in terms of slicewise definability in finite variable least fixed-point logic, which is reminiscent of the Immerman-Vardi Theorem characterizing the class PTIME in terms of definability in least fixed-point logic.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2000

Computing Crossing Numbers in Quadratic Time

We show that for every fixed non-negative integer k there is a quadratic time algorithm that decides whether a given graph has crossing number at most k and, if this is the case, computes a drawing of the graph in the plane with at most k crossings.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2000

Deciding first-order properties of locally tree-decomposable structures

We introduce the concept of a class of graphs, or more generally, relational structures, being locally tree-decomposable. There are numerous examples of locally tree-decomposable classes, among them the class of planar graphs and all classes of bounded valence or of bounded tree-width. We also consider a slightly more general concept of a class of structures having bounded local tree-width. We show that for each property P of structures that is definable in first-order logic and for each locally tree-decomposable class C of graphs, there is a linear time algorithm deciding whether a given structure A in C has property P. For classes C of bounded local tree-width, we show that for every k\ge 1 there is an algorithm that solves the same problem in time O(n^{1+(1/k)}) (where n is the cardinality of the input structure).

cs.DS↗