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Lars Jaffke

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12 papers
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12

TCS Journal 2026 Journal Article

Hamiltonicity parameterized by mim-width is (indeed) para-NP-hard

  • Benjamin Bergougnoux
  • Lars Jaffke

We prove that Hamiltonian Path and Hamiltonian Cycle are NP-hard on graphs of linear mim-width 26, even when a linear order of the input graph with mim-width 26 is provided together with input. This fills a gap left by a broken proof of the para-NP-hardness of Hamiltonicity problems parameterized by mim-width.

SODA Conference 2023 Conference Paper

A logic-based algorithmic meta-theorem for mim-width

  • Benjamin Bergougnoux
  • Jan Dreier
  • Lars Jaffke

We introduce a logic called distance neighborhood logic with acyclicity and connectivity constraints (A&C DN for short) which extends existential MSO 1 with predicates for querying neighborhoods of vertex sets in various powers of a graph and for verifying connectivity and acyclicity of vertex sets. Building upon [Bergougnoux and Kante, ESA 2019; SIDMA 2021], we show that the model checking problem for every fixed A&C DN formula is solvable in n O(w) time when the input graph is given together with a branch decomposition of mim-width W. Nearly all problems that are known to be solvable in polynomial time given a branch decomposition of constant mim-width can be expressed in this framework. We add several natural problems to this list, including problems asking for diverse sets of solutions. Our model checking algorithm is efficient whenever the given branch decomposition of the input graph has small index in terms of the d-neighborhood equivalence [Bui-Xuan, Telle, and Vatshelle, TCS 2013]. We therefore unify and extend known algorithms for tree-width, clique-width and rank-width. Our algorithm has a single-exponential dependence on these three width measures and asymptotically matches run times of the fastest known algorithms for several problems. This results in algorithms with tight run times under the Exponential Time Hypothesis (ETH) for tree-width, clique-width and rank-width; the above mentioned run time for mim-width is nearly tight under the ETH for several problems as well. Our results are also tight in terms of the expressive power of the logic: we show that already slight extensions of our logic make the model checking problem para-NP-hard when parameterized by mim-width plus formula length. * The full version of the paper can be accessed at https: //arxiv. org/abs/2202. 13335. This research is part of a project that has received funding from the Research Council of Norway Grant Agreement 274526 (LJ).

SODA Conference 2023 Conference Paper

A tight quasi-polynomial bound for Global Label Min-Cut

  • Lars Jaffke
  • Paloma T. Lima
  • Tomás Masarík
  • Marcin Pilipczuk
  • Uéverton S. Souza

We study a generalization of the classic GLOBAL MIN-CUT problem, called GLOBAL LABEL MIN-CUT (or sometimes GLOBAL HEDGE MIN-CUT): the edges of the input (multi)graph are labeled (or partitioned into color classes or hedges), and removing all edges of the same label (color or from the same hedge) costs one. The problem asks to disconnect the graph at minimum cost. While the st-cut version of the problem is known to be NP-hard, the above global cut version is known to admit a quasi-polynomial randomized n O(log OPT) -time algorithm due to Ghaffari, Karger, and Panigrahi [SODA 2017]. They consider this as “strong evidence that this problem is in P”. We show that this is actually not the case. We complete the study of the complexity of the Global Label Min-Cut problem by showing that the quasi-polynomial running time is probably optimal: We show that the existence of an algorithm with running time ( np ) o(log n /(log log n )2 ) would contradict the Randomized Exponential Time Hypothesis, where n is the number of vertices, and p is the number of labels in the input. The key step for the lower bound is a proof that Global Label Min-Cut is W[1]-hard when parameterized by the number of uncut labels. In other words, the problem is difficult in the regime where almost all labels need to be cut to disconnect the graph. To turn this lower bound into a quasi-polynomial-time lower bound, we also needed to revisit the framework due to Marx [Theory Comput. 2010] of proving lower bounds assuming Exponential Time Hypothesis through the SUBGRAPH ISOMORPHISM problem parameterized by the number of edges of the pattern. Here, we provide an alternative simplified proof of the hardness of this problem that is more versatile with respect to the choice of the regimes of the parameters. * This research is a part of a project that has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme Grant Agreement 714704 (LJ, TM, MP, US) and from the Research Council of Norway (LJ).

SODA Conference 2023 Conference Paper

Fixed-parameter tractability of DIRECTED MULTICUT with three terminal pairs parameterized by the size of the cutset: twin-width meets flow-augmentation

  • Meike Hatzel
  • Lars Jaffke
  • Paloma T. Lima
  • Tomás Masarík
  • Marcin Pilipczuk
  • Roohani Sharma
  • Manuel Sorge

We show fixed-parameter tractability of the DIRECTED MULTICUT problem with three terminal pairs (with a randomized algorithm). In this problem we are given a directed graph G, three pairs of vertices (called terminals ) ( s 1, t 1 ), ( s 2, t 2 ), ( s 3, t 3 ), and an integer k and we want to find a set of at most k non-terminal vertices in G that intersect all s 1 t 1 -paths, all s 2 t 2 -paths, and all s 3 t 3 -paths. The parameterized complexity of this problem has been open since Chitnis, Hajiaghayi, and Marx proved fixed-parameter tractability of the two-terminal-pairs case at SODA 2012, and Pilipczuk and Wahlström proved the W[1]-hardness of the four-terminal-pairs case at SODA 2016. On the technical side, we use two recent developments in parameterized algorithms. Using the technique of directed flow-augmentation [Kim, Kratsch, Pilipczuk, Wahlström, STOC 2022] we cast the problem as a CSP problem with few variables and constraints over a large ordered domain. We observe that this problem can be in turn encoded as an FO model-checking task over a structure consisting of a few 0-1 matrices. We look at this problem through the lenses of twin-width, a recently introduced structural parameter [Bonnet, Kim, Thomassé, Watrigant, FOCS 2020]: By a recent characterization [Bonnet, Giocanti, Ossona de Mendez, Simon, Thomassé, Toruńczyk, STOC 2022] the said FO model-checking task can be done in FPT time if the said matrices have bounded grid rank. To complete the proof, we show an irrelevant vertex rule: If any of the matrices in the said encoding has a large grid minor, a vertex corresponding to the “middle” box in the grid minor can be proclaimed irrelevant — not contained in the sought solution — and thus reduced. * The full version of the paper can be accessed at https: //arxiv. org/abs/2207. 07425. The research leading to the results presented in this paper was partially carried out during the Parameterized Algorithms Retreat of the University of Warsaw, PARUW 2022, held in Bedlewo in April 2022. This research is a part of projects that have received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme Grant Agreement 714704 (TM, MP) and 648527 (MH), from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (MS), from the Research Council of Norway (LJ), and by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and by a fellowship within the IFI programme of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). (MH).

Highlights Conference 2022 Conference Abstract

A Logic-Based Algorithmic Meta-Theorem for Mim-Width

  • Lars Jaffke

We introduce a logic called distance neighborhood logic with acyclicity and connectivity constraints (A&C DN for short) which extends existential MSO1 with predicates for querying neighborhoods of vertex sets and for verifying connectivity and acyclicity of vertex sets in various powers of a graph. Building upon [Bergougnoux and Kanté, ESA 2019; SIDMA 2021], we show that the model checking problem for every fixed A&C DN formula is solvable in n^O(w) time when the input graph is given together with a branch decomposition of mim-width w. Nearly all problems that are known to be solvable in polynomial time given a branch decomposition of constant mim-width can be expressed in this framework. We add several natural problems to this list, including problems asking for diverse sets of solutions. Our model checking algorithm is efficient whenever the given branch decomposition of the input graph has small index in terms of the d-neighborhood equivalence [Bui-Xuan, Telle, and Vatshelle, TCS 2013]. We therefore unify and extend known algorithms for tree-width, clique-width and rank-width. Our algorithm has a single-exponential dependence on these three width measures and asymptotically matches run times of the fastest known algorithms for several problems. This results in algorithms with tight run times under the Exponential Time Hypothesis (ETH) for tree-width and clique-width; the above mentioned run time for mim-width is nearly tight under the ETH for several problems as well. Our results are also tight in terms of the expressive power of the logic: we show that already slight extensions of our logic make the model checking problem para-NP-hard when parameterized by mim-width plus formula length. This is joint work with Benjamin Bergougnoux and Jan Dreier.

AIJ Journal 2022 Journal Article

Diversity of solutions: An exploration through the lens of fixed-parameter tractability theory

  • Julien Baste
  • Michael R. Fellows
  • Lars Jaffke
  • Tomáš Masařík
  • Mateus de Oliveira Oliveira
  • Geevarghese Philip
  • Frances A. Rosamond

When modeling an application of practical relevance as an instance of a combinatorial problem X, we are often interested not merely in finding one optimal solution for that instance, but in finding a sufficiently diverse collection of good solutions. In this work we initiate a systematic study of diversity from the point of view of fixed-parameter tractability theory. First, we consider an intuitive notion of diversity of a collection of solutions which suits a large variety of combinatorial problems of practical interest. We then present an algorithmic framework which –automatically– converts a tree-decomposition-based dynamic programming algorithm for a given combinatorial problem X into a dynamic programming algorithm for the diverse version of X. Surprisingly, our algorithm has a polynomial dependence on the diversity parameter.

TCS Journal 2020 Journal Article

A complexity dichotomy for critical values of the b-chromatic number of graphs

  • Lars Jaffke
  • Paloma T. Lima

A b-coloring of a graph G is a proper coloring of its vertices such that each color class contains a vertex that has at least one neighbor in all the other color classes. The b-Coloring problem asks whether a graph G has a b-coloring with k colors. The b-chromatic number of a graph G, denoted by χ b ( G ), is the maximum number k such that G admits a b-coloring with k colors. We consider the complexity of the b-Coloring problem, whenever the value of k is close to one of two upper bounds on χ b ( G ): The maximum degree Δ ( G ) plus one, and the m-degree, denoted by m ( G ), which is defined as the maximum number i such that G has i vertices of degree at least i − 1. We obtain a dichotomy result for all fixed k ∈ N when k is close to one of the two above mentioned upper bounds. Concretely, we show that if k ∈ { Δ ( G ) + 1 − p, m ( G ) − p }, the problem is polynomial-time solvable whenever p ∈ { 0, 1 } and, even when k = 3, it is NP -complete whenever p ≥ 2. We furthermore consider parameterizations of the b-Coloring problem that involve the maximum degree Δ ( G ) of the input graph G and give two FPT -algorithms. First, we show that deciding whether a graph G has a b-coloring with m ( G ) colors is FPT parameterized by Δ ( G ). Second, we show that b-Coloring is FPT parameterized by Δ ( G ) + ℓ k ( G ), where ℓ k ( G ) denotes the number of vertices of degree at least k.

MFCS Conference 2020 Conference Paper

Compressing Permutation Groups into Grammars and Polytopes. A Graph Embedding Approach

  • Lars Jaffke
  • Mateus de Oliveira Oliveira
  • Hans Raj Tiwary

It can be shown that each permutation group G ⊑ 𝕊_n can be embedded, in a well defined sense, in a connected graph with O(n+|G|) vertices. Some groups, however, require much fewer vertices. For instance, 𝕊_n itself can be embedded in the n-clique K_n, a connected graph with n vertices. In this work, we show that the minimum size of a context-free grammar generating a finite permutation group G⊑ 𝕊_n can be upper bounded by three structural parameters of connected graphs embedding G: the number of vertices, the treewidth, and the maximum degree. More precisely, we show that any permutation group G ⊑ 𝕊_n that can be embedded into a connected graph with m vertices, treewidth k, and maximum degree Δ, can also be generated by a context-free grammar of size 2^{O(kΔlogΔ)}⋅ m^{O(k)}. By combining our upper bound with a connection established by Pesant, Quimper, Rousseau and Sellmann [Gilles Pesant et al. , 2009] between the extension complexity of a permutation group and the grammar complexity of a formal language, we also get that these permutation groups can be represented by polytopes of extension complexity 2^{O(kΔlogΔ)}⋅ m^{O(k)}. The above upper bounds can be used to provide trade-offs between the index of permutation groups, and the number of vertices, treewidth and maximum degree of connected graphs embedding these groups. In particular, by combining our main result with a celebrated 2^{Ω(n)} lower bound on the grammar complexity of the symmetric group 𝕊_n due to Glaister and Shallit [Glaister and Shallit, 1996] we have that connected graphs of treewidth o(n/log n) and maximum degree o(n/log n) embedding subgroups of 𝕊_n of index 2^{cn} for some small constant c must have n^{ω(1)} vertices. This lower bound can be improved to exponential on graphs of treewidth n^{ε} for ε < 1 and maximum degree o(n/log n).

IJCAI Conference 2020 Conference Paper

Diversity of Solutions: An Exploration Through the Lens of Fixed-Parameter Tractability Theory

  • Julien Baste
  • Michael R. Fellows
  • Lars Jaffke
  • Tomáš Masařík
  • Mateus de Oliveira Oliveira
  • Geevarghese Philip
  • Frances A. Rosamond

When modeling an application of practical relevance as an instance of a combinatorial problem X, we are often interested not merely in finding one optimal solution for that instance, but in finding a sufficiently diverse collection of good solutions. In this work we initiate a systematic study of diversity from the point of view of fixed-parameter tractability theory. We consider an intuitive notion of diversity of a collection of solutions which suits a large variety of combinatorial problems of practical interest. Our main contribution is an algorithmic framework which --automatically-- converts a tree-decomposition-based dynamic programming algorithm for a given combinatorial problem X into a dynamic programming algorithm for the diverse version of X. Surprisingly, our algorithm has a polynomial dependence on the diversity parameter.

MFCS Conference 2020 Conference Paper

Structural Parameterizations of Clique Coloring

  • Lars Jaffke
  • Paloma T. Lima
  • Geevarghese Philip

A clique coloring of a graph is an assignment of colors to its vertices such that no maximal clique is monochromatic. We initiate the study of structural parameterizations of the Clique Coloring problem which asks whether a given graph has a clique coloring with q colors. For fixed q ≥ 2, we give an 𝒪^⋆(q^{tw})-time algorithm when the input graph is given together with one of its tree decompositions of width tw. We complement this result with a matching lower bound under the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis. We furthermore show that (when the number of colors is unbounded) Clique Coloring is XP parameterized by clique-width.

MFCS Conference 2019 Conference Paper

A Complexity Dichotomy for Critical Values of the b-Chromatic Number of Graphs

  • Lars Jaffke
  • Paloma T. Lima

A b-coloring of a graph G is a proper coloring of its vertices such that each color class contains a vertex that has at least one neighbor in all the other color classes. The b-Coloring problem asks whether a graph G has a b-coloring with k colors. The b-chromatic number of a graph G, denoted by chi_b(G), is the maximum number k such that G admits a b-coloring with k colors. We consider the complexity of the b-Coloring problem, whenever the value of k is close to one of two upper bounds on chi_b(G): The maximum degree Delta(G) plus one, and the m-degree, denoted by m(G), which is defined as the maximum number i such that G has i vertices of degree at least i-1. We obtain a dichotomy result for all fixed k in N when k is close to one of the two above mentioned upper bounds. Concretely, we show that if k in {Delta(G) + 1 - p, m(G) - p}, the problem is polynomial-time solvable whenever p in {0, 1} and, even when k = 3, it is NP-complete whenever p >= 2. We furthermore consider parameterizations of the b-Coloring problem that involve the maximum degree Delta(G) of the input graph G and give two FPT-algorithms. First, we show that deciding whether a graph G has a b-coloring with m(G) colors is FPT parameterized by Delta(G). Second, we show that b-Coloring{} is FPT parameterized by Delta(G) + l_k(G), where l_k(G) denotes the number of vertices of degree at least k.

TCS Journal 2019 Journal Article

Mim-width III. Graph powers and generalized distance domination problems

  • Lars Jaffke
  • O-Joung Kwon
  • Torstein J.F. Strømme
  • Jan Arne Telle

We generalize the family of ( σ, ρ ) problems and locally checkable vertex partition problems to their distance versions, which naturally captures well-known problems such as Distance- r Dominating Set and Distance- r Independent Set. We show that these distance problems are in XP parameterized by the structural parameter mim-width, and hence polynomial-time solvable on graph classes where mim-width is bounded and quickly computable, such as k-trapezoid graphs, Dilworth k-graphs, (circular) permutation graphs, interval graphs and their complements, convex graphs and their complements, k-polygon graphs, circular arc graphs, complements of d-degenerate graphs, and H-graphs if given an H-representation. We obtain these results by showing that taking any power of a graph never increases its mim-width by more than a factor of two. To supplement these findings, we show that many classes of ( σ, ρ ) problems are W [ 1 ] -hard parameterized by mim-width + solution size. We show that powers of graphs of tree-width w − 1 or path-width w and powers of graphs of clique-width w have mim-width at most w. These results provide new classes of bounded mim-width. We prove a slight strengthening of the first statement which implies that, surprisingly, Leaf Power graphs which are of importance in the field of phylogenetic studies have mim-width at most 1.

v2026.09.13