At the core of the seminal Graph Minor Theory of Robertson and Seymour is a powerful structural theorem capturing the structure of graphs excluding a fixed minor. This result is used throughout graph theory and graph algorithms, but is existential. We develop a polynomialtime algorithm using topological graph theory to decompose a graph into the structure guaranteed by the theorem: a clique-sum of pieces almost-embeddable into boundedgenus surfaces. This result has many applications. In particular, we show applications to developing many approximation algorithms, including a 2-approximation to graph coloring, constant-factor approximations to treewidth and the largest grid minor, combinatorial polylogarithmicapproximation to half-integral multicommodity flow, subexponential fixed-parameter algorithms, and PTASs for many minimization and maximization problems, on graphs excluding a fixed minor. 1.

We demonstrate a new connection between fixed-parameter tractability and approximation algorithms for combinatorial optimization problems on planar graphs and their generalizations. Specifically, we extend the theory of so-called “bidimensional” problems to show that essentially all such problems have both subexponential fixed-parameter algorithms and PTASs. Bidimensional problems include e.g. feedback vertex set, vertex cover, minimum maximal matching, face cover, a series of vertex-removal problems, dominating set, edge dominating set, r-dominating set, diameter, connected dominating set, connected edge dominating set, and connected r-dominating set. We obtain PTASs for all of these problems in planar graphs and certain generalizations; of particular interest are our results for the two well-known problems of connected dominating set and general feedback vertex set for planar graphs and their generalizations, for which PTASs were not known to exist. Our techniques generalize and in some sense unify the two main previous approaches for designing PTASs in planar graphs, namely, the Lipton-Tarjan separator approach [FOCS’77] and the Baker layerwise decomposition approach [FOCS’83]. In particular, we replace the notion of separators with a more powerful tool from the bidimensionality theory, enabling the first approach to apply to a much broader class of minimization problems than previously possible; and through the use of a structural backbone and thickening of layers we demonstrate how the second approach can be applied to problems with a “nonlocal” structure.

Graph separation is a well-known tool to make (hard) graph problems accessible to a divide and conquer approach. We show how to use graph separator theorems in combination with (linear) problem kernels in order to develop xed parameter algorithms for many well-known NP-hard (planar) graph problems. We coin the key notion of glueable select&verify graph problems and derive from that a prospective way to easily check whether a planar graph problem will allow for a xed parameter algorithm of running time c p

We provide a data structure for maintaining an embedding of a graph on a surface (represented combinatorially by a permutation of edges around each vertex) and computing generators of the fundamental group of the surface, in amortized time O(logn + logg(loglogg) 3) per update on a surface of genus g; we can also test orientability of the surface in the same time, and maintain the minimum and maximum spanning tree of the graph in time O(log n + log 4 g) per update. Our data structure allows edge insertion and deletion as well as the dual operations; these operations may implicitly change the genus of the embedding surface. We apply similar ideas to improve the constant factor in a separator theorem for low-genus graphs, and to find in linear time a tree-decomposition of low-genus low-diameter graphs.

We introduce a new framework for designing fixed-parameter algorithms with subexponential running time---2 . Our results apply to a broad family of graph problems, called bidimensional problems, which includes many domination and covering problems such as vertex cover, feedback vertex set, minimum maximal matching, dominating set, edge dominating set, clique-transversal set, and many others restricted to bounded genus graphs. Furthermore, it is fairly straightforward to prove that a problem is bidimensional. In particular, our framework includes as special cases all previously known problems to have such subexponential algorithms. Previously, these algorithms applied to planar graphs, single-crossing-minor-free graphs, and/or map graphs; we extend these results to apply to bounded-genus graphs as well. In a parallel development of combinatorial results, we establish an upper bound on the treewidth (or branchwidth) of a bounded-genus graph that excludes some planar graph H as a minor. This bound depends linearly on the size (H)| of the excluded graph H and the genus g(G) of the graph G, and applies and extends the graph-minors work of Robertson and Seymour. Building on these results...

In this article, we study parameterized complexity theory from the perspective of logic, or more specifically, descriptive complexity theory. We propose to consider parameterized model-checking problems for various fragments of first-order logic as generic parameterized problems and show how this approach can be useful in studying both fixed-parameter tractability and intractability. For example, we establish the equivalence between the model-checking for existential first-order logic, the homomorphism problem for relational structures, and the substructure isomorphism problem. Our main tractability result shows that model-checking for first-order formulas is fixed-parameter tractable when restricted to a class of input structures with an excluded minor. On the intractability side, for everyØ�we prove an equivalence between model-checking for first-order formulas withØquantifier alternations and the parameterized halting problem for alternating Turing machines withØalternations. We discuss the close connection between this alternation hierarchy and Downey and Fellows ’ W-hierarchy. On a more abstract level, we consider two forms of definability, called Fagin definability and slicewise definability, that are appropriate for describing parameterized problems. We give a characterization of the class FPT of all fixedparameter tractable problems in terms of slicewise definability in finite variable least fixed-point logic, which is reminiscent of the Immerman-Vardi Theorem characterizing the class PTIME in terms of definability in least fixedpoint logic. 1

Many problems that are intractable for general graphs allow polynomial-time solutions for structured classes of graphs, such as planar graphs and graphs of bounded treewidth.

We introduce the concept of locally excluded minors. Graph classes locally excluding a minor generalise the concept of excluded minor classes but also of graph classes with bounded local tree-width and graph classes with bounded expansion. We show that first-order model-checking is fixed-parameter tractable on any class of graphs locally excluding a minor. This strictly generalises analogous results by Flum and Grohe on excluded minor classes and Frick and Grohe on classes with bounded local tree-width. As an important consequence of the proof we obtain fixed-parameter algorithms for problems such as dominating or independent set on graph classes excluding a minor, where now the parameter is the size of the dominating set and the excluded minor. We also study graph classes with excluded minors, where the minor may grow slowly with the size of the graphs and show that again, firstorder model-checking is fixed-parameter tractable on any such class of graphs.

We solve an open problem posed by Eppstein in 1995 [14, 15] and re-enforced by Grohe [16, 17] concerning locally bounded treewidth in minor-closed families of graphs. A graph has bounded local treewidth if the subgraph induced by vertices within distance r of any vertex has treewidth bounded by a function of r (not n). Eppstein characterized minor-closed families of graphs with bounded local treewidth as precisely minor-closed families that minor-exclude an apex graph, where an apex graph has one vertex whose removal leaves a planar graph. In particular, Eppstein showed that all apex-minor-free graphs have bounded local treewidth, but his bound is doubly exponential in r, leaving open whether a tighter bound could be obtained. We improve this doubly exponential bound to a linear bound, which is optimal. In particular, any minor-closed graph family with bounded local treewidth has linear local treewidth. Our bound generalizes previously known linear bounds for special classes of graphs proved by several authors. As a consequence of our result, we obtain substantially faster polynomial-time approximation schemes for a broad class of problems in apex-minor-free graphs, improving the running time from .

Abstract. For several graph theoretic parameters such as vertex cover and dominating set, it is known that if their values are bounded by k then the treewidth of the graph is bounded by some function of k. This fact is used as the main tool for the design of several fixed-parameter algorithms on minor-closed graph classes such as planar graphs, singlecrossing-minor-free graphs, and graphs of bounded genus. In this paper we examine the question whether similar bounds can be obtained for larger minor-closed graph classes, and for general families of parameters including all the parameters where such a behavior has been reported so far. Given a graph parameter P, we say that a graph family F has the parameter-treewidth property for P if there is a function f(p) such that every graph G ∈ F with parameter at most p has treewidth at most f(p). We prove as our main result that, for a large family of parameters called contraction-bidimensional parameters, a minor-closed graph family F has the parameter-treewidth property if F has bounded local treewidth. We also show “if and only if ” for some parameters, and thus this result is in some sense tight. In addition we show that, for a slightly smaller family of parameters called minor-bidimensional parameters, all minor-closed graph families F excluding some fixed graphs have the parameter-treewidth property. The bidimensional parameters include many domination and covering parameters such as vertex cover, feedback vertex set, dominating set, edge-dominating set, q-dominating set (for fixed q). We use these theorems to develop new fixed-parameter algorithms in these contexts. 1