Maximum Matching Width: New Characterizations and a Fast Algorithm for Dominating Set

Jisu Jeong, Sigve Hortemo Saether, Jan Telle
unpublished
We give alternative definitions for maximum matching width, e.g. a graph G has mmw(G) ≤ k if and only if it is a subgraph of a chordal graph H and for every maximal clique X of H there exists A, B, C ⊆ X with A∪B ∪C = X and |A|, |B|, |C| ≤ k such that any subset of X that is a minimal separator of H is a subset of either A, B or C. Treewidth and branchwidth have alternative definitions through intersections of subtrees, where treewidth focuses on nodes and branchwidth focuses on edges. We show
more » ... hat mm-width combines both aspects, focusing on nodes and on edges. Based on this we prove that given a graph G and a branch decomposition of mm-width k we can solve Dominating Set in time O * (8 k), thereby beating O * (3 tw(G)) whenever tw(G) > log 3 8×k ≈ 1.893k. Note that mmw(G) ≤ tw(G)+1 ≤ 3 mmw(G) and these inequalities are tight. Given only the graph G and using the best known algorithms to find decompositions, maximum matching width will be better for solving Dominating Set whenever tw(G) > 1.549 × mmw(G).
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