Finding Optimal Triangulations Parameterized by Edge Clique Cover

TL;DR

This paper introduces parameterized algorithms for optimal graph triangulation problems based on the size of an edge clique cover, enabling efficient solutions for various graph problems like treewidth and perfect phylogeny.

Contribution

It provides enumeration algorithms and fixed-parameter tractable algorithms parameterized by edge clique cover size for multiple graph optimization problems.

Findings

Number of minimal separators is at most 2^{cc}.

Number of potential maximal cliques is at most 3^{cc}.

Algorithms run in O^*(2^{cc}) and O^*(3^{cc})} time for key problems.

Abstract

We consider problems that can be formulated as a task of finding an optimal triangulation of a graph w.r.t. some notion of optimality. We present algorithms parameterized by the size of a minimum edge clique cover ($cc$) to such problems. This parameterization occurs naturally in many problems in this setting, e.g., in the perfect phylogeny problem $cc$ is at most the number of taxa, in fractional hypertreewidth $cc$ is at most the number of hyperedges, and in treewidth of Bayesian networks $cc$ is at most the number of non-root nodes. We show that the number of minimal separators of graphs is at most $2^{cc}$, the number of potential maximal cliques is at most $3^{cc}$, and these objects can be listed in times $O^*(2^{cc})$ and $O^*(3^{cc})$, respectively, even when no edge clique cover is given as input; the $O^*(\cdot)$ notation omits factors polynomial in the input size. These enumeration algorithms imply $O^*(3^{cc})$ time algorithms for problems such as treewidth, weighted minimum fill-in, and feedback vertex set. For generalized and fractional hypertreewidth we give $O^*(4^m)$ time and $O^*(3^m)$ time algorithms, respectively, where $m$ is the number of hyperedges. When an edge clique cover of size $cc'$ is given as a part of the input we give $O^*(2^{cc'})$ time algorithms for treewidth, minimum fill-in, and chordal sandwich. This implies an $O^*(2^n)$ time algorithm for perfect phylogeny, where $n$ is the number of taxa. We also give polynomial space algorithms with time complexities $O^*(9^{cc'})$ and $O^*(9^{cc + O(\log^2 cc)})$ for problems in this framework.