Computational Complexity of Covering Colored Mixed Multigraphs with Simple Degree Partitions

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Bok, Jan, Fiala, Jiří, Jedličková, Nikola, Kratochvíl, Jan, Seifrtová, Micheala
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866929734472957952
author Bok, Jan
Fiala, Jiří
Jedličková, Nikola
Kratochvíl, Jan
Seifrtová, Micheala
author_facet Bok, Jan
Fiala, Jiří
Jedličková, Nikola
Kratochvíl, Jan
Seifrtová, Micheala
contents The notion of graph covers (also referred to as locally bijective homomorphisms) plays an important role in topological graph theory and has found its computer science applications in models of local computation. For a fixed target graph $H$, the {\sc $H$-Cover} problem asks if an input graph $G$ allows a graph covering projection onto $H$. Despite the fact that the quest for characterizing the computational complexity of {\sc $H$-Cover} had been started more than 30 years ago, only a handful of general results have been known so far. In this paper, we present a complete characterization of the computational complexity of covering coloured graphs for the case that every equivalence class in the degree partition of the target graph has at most two vertices. We prove this result in a very general form. Following the lines of current development of topological graph theory, we study graphs in the most relaxed sense of the definition. In particular, we consider graphs that are mixed (they may have both directed and undirected edges), may have multiple edges, loops, and semi-edges. We show that a strong P/NP-complete dichotomy holds true in the sense that for each such fixed target graph $H$, the {\sc $H$-Cover} problem is either polynomial-time solvable for arbitrary inputs, or NP-complete even for simple input graphs.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_20151
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Computational Complexity of Covering Colored Mixed Multigraphs with Simple Degree Partitions
Bok, Jan
Fiala, Jiří
Jedličková, Nikola
Kratochvíl, Jan
Seifrtová, Micheala
Discrete Mathematics
Combinatorics
The notion of graph covers (also referred to as locally bijective homomorphisms) plays an important role in topological graph theory and has found its computer science applications in models of local computation. For a fixed target graph $H$, the {\sc $H$-Cover} problem asks if an input graph $G$ allows a graph covering projection onto $H$. Despite the fact that the quest for characterizing the computational complexity of {\sc $H$-Cover} had been started more than 30 years ago, only a handful of general results have been known so far. In this paper, we present a complete characterization of the computational complexity of covering coloured graphs for the case that every equivalence class in the degree partition of the target graph has at most two vertices. We prove this result in a very general form. Following the lines of current development of topological graph theory, we study graphs in the most relaxed sense of the definition. In particular, we consider graphs that are mixed (they may have both directed and undirected edges), may have multiple edges, loops, and semi-edges. We show that a strong P/NP-complete dichotomy holds true in the sense that for each such fixed target graph $H$, the {\sc $H$-Cover} problem is either polynomial-time solvable for arbitrary inputs, or NP-complete even for simple input graphs.
title Computational Complexity of Covering Colored Mixed Multigraphs with Simple Degree Partitions
topic Discrete Mathematics
Combinatorics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.20151