Semidefinite Approximations for Bicliques and Bi-Independent Pairs

Abstract

We investigate some graph parameters dealing with bi-independent pairs (A, B) in a bipartite graph [Formula: see text], that is, pairs (A, B) where [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text] are independent. These parameters also allow us to study bicliques in general graphs. When maximizing the cardinality [Formula: see text], one finds the stability number [Formula: see text], well-known to be polynomial-time computable. When maximizing the product [Formula: see text], one finds the parameter g(G), shown to be NP-hard by Peeters in 2003, and when maximizing the ratio [Formula: see text], one finds h(G), introduced by Vallentin in 2020 for bounding product-free sets in finite groups. We show that h(G) is an NP-hard parameter and, as a crucial ingredient, that it is NP-complete to decide whether a bipartite graph G has a balanced maximum independent set. These hardness results motivate introducing semidefinite programming (SDP) bounds for g(G), h(G), and [Formula: see text] (the maximum cardinality of a balanced independent set). We show that these bounds can be seen as natural variations of the Lovász ϑ-number, a well-known semidefinite bound on [Formula: see text]. In addition, we formulate closed-form eigenvalue bounds, and we show relationships among them as well as with earlier spectral parameters by Hoffman and Haemers in 2001 and Vallentin in 2020. Funding: This work was supported by H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions [Grant 813211 (POEMA)].