Enumeration for FO Queries over Nowhere Dense Graphs

Abstract

We consider the evaluation of first-order queries over classes of databases that are nowhere dense. The notion of nowhere dense classes was introduced by Nesetril and Ossona de Mendez as a formalization of classes of sparse graphs and generalizes many well-known classes of graphs, such as classes of bound­ed degree, bounded tree-width, or bounded expansion. It has recently been shown by Grohe, Kreutzer, and Siebertz that over nowhere dense classes of databases, first-order sentences can be evaluated in pseudo-linear time (pseudo-linear time means that for all e there exists an algorithm working in time O(n1+e), where n is the size of the database). For first-order queries of higher arities, we show that over any nowhere dense class of databases, the set of their solutions can be enumerated with constant delay after a pseudo-linear time preprocessing. In the same context, we also show that after a pseudo-linear time preprocessing we can, on input of a tuple, test in constant time whether it is a solution to the query.