The Multicolored Graph Realization Problem

TL;DR

The paper introduces the Multicolored Graph Realization problem, analyzing its computational complexity and establishing NP-hardness for various graph classes, while also identifying conditions under which the problem becomes tractable.

Contribution

It formalizes the MGRP, proves its NP-hardness on several graph classes, and explores parameterized cases where the problem is solvable efficiently.

Findings

MGRP is NP-complete for chordal, bipartite, and grid graphs.

The problem remains hard even with small color classes and bounded degree.

Certain combined parameters lead to tractability.

Abstract

We introduce the Multicolored Graph Realization problem (MGRP). The input to the problem is a colored graph $(G,\varphi)$, i.e., a graph together with a coloring on its vertices. We can associate to each colored graph a cluster graph ($G_\varphi)$ in which, after collapsing to a node all vertices with the same color, we remove multiple edges and self-loops. A set of vertices $S$ is multicolored when $S$ has exactly one vertex from each color class. The problem is to decide whether there is a multicolored set $S$ such that, after identifying each vertex in $S$ with its color class, $G[S]$ coincides with $G_\varphi$. The MGR problem is related to the class of generalized network problems, most of which are NP-hard. For example the generalized MST problem. MGRP is a generalization of the Multicolored Clique Problem, which is known to be W[1]-hard when parameterized by the number of colors. Thus MGRP remains W[1]-hard, when parameterized by the size of the cluster graph and when parameterized by any graph parameter on $G_\varphi$, among those for treewidth. We look to instances of the problem in which both the number of color classes and the treewidth of $G_\varphi$ are unbounded. We show that MGRP is NP-complete when $G_\varphi$ is either chordal, biconvex bipartite, complete bipartite or a 2-dimensional grid. Our hardness results follows from suitable reductions from the 1-in-3 monotone SAT problem. Our reductions show that the problem remains hard even when the maximum number of vertices in a color class is 3. In the case of the grid, the hardness holds also graphs with bounded degree. We complement those results by showing combined parameterizations under which the MGR problem became tractable.