An efficient algorithm for the genus problem with explicit construction of forbidden subgraphs

Abstract

We give an algorithm for imbedding a graph G of n vertices onto an oriented surface of minimal genus g. If g > 0 then we also construct a forbidden subgraph of G which is homeomorphic to a graph of size exp(O(g)!) which cannot be imbedded on a surface of genus g-1. Our algorithm takes sequential time exp(O(g)!)nO(1). Since exp(O(g)!) = exp(exp(O(glog(g)))), our algorithm is polynomial time for genus g=O(loglog(n)/logloglog(n)). A simple parallel implementation of our algorithm takes parallel time (logn)O(1)+O(g)! using exp(O(g)!)nO(1) processors. We give also the smallest known upper bound, namely exp(O(g)!), on the number F(g) of homeomorphic distinct forbidden subgraphs for graph imbeddings onto a surface of genus g. The two best previous algorithms [Filotti, Miller, Reif,79] and [Robertson and Seymour,86] for graph imbedding onto a surface of genus g, required nO(g) and f(g)n2 sequential time, respectively. The work of [Robertson and Seymour,86] also gave a finite bound for F(g). However their proof spanned many papers and were highly nonconstructive; f(g) and F(g) were bounded by some (large) tower of exponents of g. Our work provides a distinct constructive approach giving considerably improved bounds for f(g) and F(g) and vastly simplified proofs. In particular, we use a “bootstrap” technique that uses a discovered forbidden subgraph for given genus g'<g to to aid us in determination of genus g'+1 imbeddings. It seems likely that our techniques can be extended to many other problems on graphs with bounded tree width.