Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ingervo, Eliel, Kisfaludi-Bak, Sándor
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.06367
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866914375501086720
author Ingervo, Eliel
Kisfaludi-Bak, Sándor
author_facet Ingervo, Eliel
Kisfaludi-Bak, Sándor
contents For $p,q\ge2$ the $\{p,q\}$-tiling graph is the (finite or infinite) planar graph $T_{p,q}$ where all faces are cycles of length $p$ and all vertices have degree $q$. We give algorithms for the problem of recognizing (induced) subgraphs of these graphs, as follows. - For $1/p+1/q>1/2$, these graphs correspond to regular tilings of the sphere. These graphs are finite, thus recognizing their (induced) subgraphs can be done in constant time. - For $1/p+1/q=1/2$, these graphs correspond to regular tilings of the Euclidean plane. For the Euclidean square grid $T_{4,4}$ Bhatt and Cosmadakis (IPL'87) showed that recognizing subgraphs is NP-hard, even if the input graph is a tree. We show that a simple divide-and conquer algorithm achieves a subexponential running time in all Euclidean tilings, and we observe that there is an almost matching lower bound in $T_{4,4}$ under the Exponential Time Hypothesis via known reductions. - For $1/p+1/q<1/2$, these graphs correspond to regular tilings of the hyperbolic plane. As our main contribution, we show that deciding if an $n$-vertex graph is isomorphic to a subgraph of the tiling $T_{p,q}$ can be done in quasi-polynomial ($n^{O(\log n)}$) time for any fixed $q$. Our results for the hyperbolic case show that it has significantly lower complexity than the Euclidean variant, and it is unlikely to be NP-hard. The Euclidean results also suggest that the problem can be maximally hard even if the graph in question is a tree. Consequently, the known treewidth bounds for subgraphs of hyperbolic tilings do not lead to an efficient algorithm by themselves. Instead, we use convex hulls within the tiling graph, which have several desirable properties in hyperbolic tilings. Our key technical insight is that planar subgraph isomorphism can be computed via a dynamic program that builds a sphere cut decomposition of a solution subgraph's convex hull.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_06367
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Recognizing Subgraphs of Regular Tilings
Ingervo, Eliel
Kisfaludi-Bak, Sándor
Computational Geometry
For $p,q\ge2$ the $\{p,q\}$-tiling graph is the (finite or infinite) planar graph $T_{p,q}$ where all faces are cycles of length $p$ and all vertices have degree $q$. We give algorithms for the problem of recognizing (induced) subgraphs of these graphs, as follows. - For $1/p+1/q>1/2$, these graphs correspond to regular tilings of the sphere. These graphs are finite, thus recognizing their (induced) subgraphs can be done in constant time. - For $1/p+1/q=1/2$, these graphs correspond to regular tilings of the Euclidean plane. For the Euclidean square grid $T_{4,4}$ Bhatt and Cosmadakis (IPL'87) showed that recognizing subgraphs is NP-hard, even if the input graph is a tree. We show that a simple divide-and conquer algorithm achieves a subexponential running time in all Euclidean tilings, and we observe that there is an almost matching lower bound in $T_{4,4}$ under the Exponential Time Hypothesis via known reductions. - For $1/p+1/q<1/2$, these graphs correspond to regular tilings of the hyperbolic plane. As our main contribution, we show that deciding if an $n$-vertex graph is isomorphic to a subgraph of the tiling $T_{p,q}$ can be done in quasi-polynomial ($n^{O(\log n)}$) time for any fixed $q$. Our results for the hyperbolic case show that it has significantly lower complexity than the Euclidean variant, and it is unlikely to be NP-hard. The Euclidean results also suggest that the problem can be maximally hard even if the graph in question is a tree. Consequently, the known treewidth bounds for subgraphs of hyperbolic tilings do not lead to an efficient algorithm by themselves. Instead, we use convex hulls within the tiling graph, which have several desirable properties in hyperbolic tilings. Our key technical insight is that planar subgraph isomorphism can be computed via a dynamic program that builds a sphere cut decomposition of a solution subgraph's convex hull.
title Recognizing Subgraphs of Regular Tilings
topic Computational Geometry
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.06367