Efficient reversal of transductions of sparse graph classes

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Dreier, Jan, Gajarský, Jakub, Pilipczuk, Michał
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Dreier, Jan
Gajarský, Jakub
Pilipczuk, Michał
author_facet Dreier, Jan
Gajarský, Jakub
Pilipczuk, Michał
contents (First-order) transductions are a basic notion capturing graph modifications that can be described in first-order logic. In this work, we propose an efficient algorithmic method to approximately reverse the application of a transduction, assuming the source graph is sparse. Precisely, for any graph class $\mathcal{C}$ that has structurally bounded expansion (i.e., can be transduced from a class of bounded expansion), we give an $O(n^4)$-time algorithm that given a graph $G\in \mathcal{C}$, computes a vertex-colored graph $H$ such that $G$ can be recovered from $H$ using a first-order interpretation and $H$ belongs to a graph class $\mathcal{D}$ of bounded expansion. This answers an open problem raised by Gajarský et al. In fact, for our procedure to work we only need to assume that $\mathcal{C}$ is monadically stable (i.e., does not transduce the class of all half-graphs) and has inherently linear neighborhood complexity (i.e., the neighborhood complexity is linear in all graph classes transducible from $\mathcal{C}$). This renders the conclusion that the graph classes satisfying these two properties coincide with classes of structurally bounded expansion.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_14906
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Efficient reversal of transductions of sparse graph classes
Dreier, Jan
Gajarský, Jakub
Pilipczuk, Michał
Logic in Computer Science
Discrete Mathematics
(First-order) transductions are a basic notion capturing graph modifications that can be described in first-order logic. In this work, we propose an efficient algorithmic method to approximately reverse the application of a transduction, assuming the source graph is sparse. Precisely, for any graph class $\mathcal{C}$ that has structurally bounded expansion (i.e., can be transduced from a class of bounded expansion), we give an $O(n^4)$-time algorithm that given a graph $G\in \mathcal{C}$, computes a vertex-colored graph $H$ such that $G$ can be recovered from $H$ using a first-order interpretation and $H$ belongs to a graph class $\mathcal{D}$ of bounded expansion. This answers an open problem raised by Gajarský et al. In fact, for our procedure to work we only need to assume that $\mathcal{C}$ is monadically stable (i.e., does not transduce the class of all half-graphs) and has inherently linear neighborhood complexity (i.e., the neighborhood complexity is linear in all graph classes transducible from $\mathcal{C}$). This renders the conclusion that the graph classes satisfying these two properties coincide with classes of structurally bounded expansion.
title Efficient reversal of transductions of sparse graph classes
topic Logic in Computer Science
Discrete Mathematics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.14906