Maximum $r$-Regular Induced Subgraph Problem: Fast Exponential Algorithms and Combinatorial Bounds

Abstract

We show that for a fixed $r$, the number of maximal $r$-regular induced subgraphs in any graph with $n$ vertices is upper bounded by $\mathcal{O}(c^n)$, where $c$ is a positive constant strictly less than $2$. This bound generalizes the well-known result of Moon and Moser, who showed an upper bound of $3^{n/3}$ on the number of maximal independent sets of a graph on $n$ vertices. We complement this upper bound result by obtaining an almost tight lower bound on the number of (possible) maximal $r$-regular induced subgraphs possible in a graph on $n$ vertices. Our upper bound results are algorithmic. That is, we can enumerate all the maximal $r$-regular induced subgraphs in time $\mathcal{O}(c^n n^{\mathcal{O}(1)})$. A related question is that of finding a maximum-sized $r$-regular induced subgraph. Given a graph $G=(V,E)$ on $n$ vertices, the Maximum $r$-Regular Induced Subgraph (M-$r$-RIS) problem asks for a maximum-sized subset of vertices, $R \subseteq V$, such that the induced subgraph on $R$ is $r$-regular. As a by-product of the enumeration algorithm, we get a $\mathcal{O}(c^n)$ time algorithm for this problem for any fixed constant $r$, where $c$ is a positive constant strictly less than $2$. Furthermore, we use the techniques and results obtained in the paper to obtain improved exact algorithms for a special case of the Induced Subgraph Isomorphism problem, namely, the Induced $r$-Regular Subgraph Isomorphism problem, where $r$ is a constant, the $\delta$-Separating Maximum Matching problem and the Efficient Edge Dominating Set problem.