English

Collapsibility to a subcomplex of a given dimension is NP-complete

Computational Geometry 2019-04-08 v3 Computational Complexity Geometric Topology

Abstract

In this paper we extend the works of Tancer and of Malgouyres and Franc\'es, showing that (d,k)(d,k)-collapsibility is NP-complete for dk+2d\geq k+2 except (2,0)(2,0). By (d,k)(d,k)-collapsibility we mean the following problem: determine whether a given dd-dimensional simplicial complex can be collapsed to some kk-dimensional subcomplex. The question of establishing the complexity status of (d,k)(d,k)-collapsibility was asked by Tancer, who proved NP-completeness of (d,0)(d,0) and (d,1)(d,1)-collapsibility (for d3d\geq 3). Our extended result, together with the known polynomial-time algorithms for (2,0)(2,0) and d=k+1d=k+1, answers the question completely.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1703.06983,
  title  = {Collapsibility to a subcomplex of a given dimension is NP-complete},
  author = {Giovanni Paolini},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1703.06983},
  year   = {2019}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T18:51:48.713Z