Counting subgraphs via homomorphisms

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Counting homomorphisms between graphs has applications in variety of areas, including extremal graph theory, properties of graph products, partition functions in statistical physics and property testing of large graphs. In this work we show a new application of counting graph homomorphisms to the areas of exact and parameterized algorithms. We introduce a generic approach for counting subgraphs in a graph. The main idea is to relate counting subgraphs to counting graph homomorphisms. This approach provides new algorithms and unifies several well known results in algorithms and combinatorics including the recent algorithm of Björklund, Husfeldt and Koivisto for computing the chromatic polynomial, the classical algorithm of Kohn, Gottlieb, Kohn, and Karp for counting Hamiltonian cycles, Ryser's formula for counting perfect matchings of a bipartite graph, and color coding based algorithms of Alon, Yuster, and Zwick.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAutomata, Languages and Programming - 36th International Colloquium, ICALP 2009, Proceedings
Pages71-82
Number of pages12
EditionPART 1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 12 Nov 2009
Event36th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming, ICALP 2009 - Rhodes, Greece
Duration: 5 Jul 200912 Jul 2009

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
NumberPART 1
Volume5555 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference36th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming, ICALP 2009
Country/TerritoryGreece
CityRhodes
Period5/07/0912/07/09

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