home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Path: sparky!uunet!think.com!rpi!gatech!concert!borg.cs.unc.edu!not-for-mail
- From: plaisted@cs.unc.edu (David Plaisted)
- Newsgroups: comp.theory
- Subject: Gismondi and Swart's algorithm
- Date: 7 Jan 1993 13:08:21 -0500
- Organization: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Lines: 56
- Distribution: inet
- Message-ID: <1ihrilINNejp@plaisted.cs.unc.edu>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: plaisted.cs.unc.edu
- Keywords: Graph isomorphism
-
-
- Here is a possible counterexample to Gismondi and Swart's algorithm
- for graph isomorphism.
-
- We can think of the $s_{a,b}$ as relating the vertices a and b, giving
- the degree to which a ``fuzzy isomorphism'' maps a to b. We can think
- of $t_{a,b,c,d} as relating the edge (a,b) of one graph to the edge
- (c,d) of the other graph. It's the degree to which a ``fuzzy
- isomorphism'' maps (a,b) to (c,d). Gismondi and Swart give an
- associated linear programming problem in which a number of reasonable
- linear inequalities are imposed on these values to try to characterize
- isomorphism as closely as possible.
-
- Let G1 be a graph consisting of two disjoint cycles of length n. Let
- G2 consist of one cycle of length 2n. Then, the corresponding linear
- programming problem of Gismondi and Swart is solvable with a solution
- vector consisting entirely of 0 and .5 values. Each vertex in G1
- corresponds to two vertices in G2 by the fuzzy isomorphism. Each
- vertex in G2 corresponds to two vertices in G1 by this fuzzy
- isomorphism. The idea is that as you go around the long cycle in G2,
- you go around each of the short cycles in G1, twice. Also, it's not
- possible to reduce any of the .5 coefficients to 0 without increasing
- some 0 coefficient. Of course, the graphs are not isomorphic.
-
- Let H1 consist of disjoint copies of G1 and G2. Let H2 be isomorphic
- to H1. Consider the linear programming problem corresponding to
- showing that H1 is isomorphic to H2. One possible solution to this is
- the true isomorphism. The other one is obtained by two copies of the
- solution for G1 and G2 above. So the G1 in H1 is related to the G2 in
- H2 and the G2 in H1 is related to the G1 in H2. Let's consider this
- second solution. All its values are 0 and .5. Furthermore, it does
- not cover a permutation, though one exists. In addition, it is not
- possible to reduce any of the .5 values to 0 without increasing some 0
- value.
-
- We can even make G1 and G2 and H1 and H2 connected, by adding a new
- vertex connected to everything else. Also, by extending this idea,
- considerably more complicated counterexamples can be found.
-
- I don't see any way that Gismondi and Swart's algorithm can
- distinguish between these two cases, though I don't fully understand
- their method. So it seems to me that their approach is wrong and even
- the algorithm is incorrect. Of course, an implementation might happen
- to give the right answer because of the solutions it happened to find.
- So it seems that their approach cannot be saved except by some
- fundamentally new ideas.
-
- However, consider the set of pairs (G1, G2) of graphs such that the
- associated linear programming problem has a (fractional) solution.
- This seems to have a fairly restricted structure. It also includes
- the pairs of isomorphic graphs. So maybe this linear programming
- problem can be used as a preprocessing step for a graph isomorphism
- algorithm.
-
- Dave Plaisted
-
-