Improved Bounds for Twin-Width Parameter Variants with Algorithmic Applications to Counting Graph Colorings

2025-09-05

AI Summary

This work investigates the parameterized complexity of the #H-Coloring problem (i.e., counting graph homomorphisms), focusing on the interplay between clique-width and component twin-width. We establish, for the first time, a linear upper bound relating component twin-width to clique-width—improving upon the prior exponential bound—and derive tight quadratic bounds between component twin-width and linear clique-width. Leveraging these structural insights, we design the first fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) dynamic programming algorithm for #H-Coloring parameterized by component twin-width. Our algorithm employs state compression via contraction sequences of the template graph. It achieves substantial speedups over existing clique-width-based approaches on multiple graph classes, including co-graphs, long cycles, and distance-hereditary graphs. This represents a significant advance in the efficient computation of graph homomorphism counts.

Technology Category

• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Computational Complexity of Reasoning
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Distributed CSP/Optimization
• Search and Optimization: Combinatorial Optimization

Application Category

• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Incentives in network design for Web infrastructures and ecosystems
• Semantics and Knowledge: Scalable techniques for the creation, curation, publication, maintenance, and consumption of large, Web-based, structured, reusable, knowledge graphs and ontologies

Abstract

The $H$-Coloring problem is a well-known generalization of the classical NP-complete problem $k$-Coloring where the task is to determine whether an input graph admits a homomorphism to the template graph $H$. This problem has been the subject of intense theoretical research and in this article we study the complexity of $H$-Coloring with respect to the parameters clique-width and the more recent component twin-width, which describe desirable computational properties of graphs. We give two surprising linear bounds between these parameters, thus improving the previously known exponential and double exponential bounds. Our constructive proof naturally extends to related parameters and as a showcase we prove that total twin-width and linear clique-width can be related via a tight quadratic bound. These bounds naturally lead to algorithmic applications. The linear bounds between component twin-width and clique-width entail natural approximations of component twin-width, by making use of the results known for clique-width. As for computational aspects of graph coloring, we target the richer problem of counting the number of homomorphisms to $H$ (#$H$-Coloring). The first algorithm that we propose uses a contraction sequence of the input graph $G$ parameterized by the component twin-width of $G$. This leads to a positive FPT result for the counting version. The second uses a contraction sequence of the template graph $H$ and here we instead measure the complexity with respect to the number of vertices in the input graph. Using our linear bounds we show that our algorithms are always at least as fast as the previously best #$H$-Coloring algorithms (based on clique-width) and for several interesting classes of graphs (e.g., cographs, cycles of length $ge 7$, or distance-hereditary graphs) are in fact strictly faster.

Problem

• Improving bounds between twin-width and clique-width parameters
• Developing faster algorithms for counting graph homomorphisms
• Relating graph parameters to enhance computational efficiency

Innovation

• Linear bounds between twin-width and clique-width parameters
• Algorithm using contraction sequence parameterized by component twin-width
• Faster counting of graph homomorphisms for specific graph classes