Related papers: Deciding first-order properties of nowhere dense g…
Nowhere dense graph classes provide one of the least restrictive notions of sparsity for graphs. Several equivalent characterizations of nowhere dense classes have been obtained over the years, using a wide range of combinatorial objects.…
Ne\v{s}et\v{r}il and Ossona de Mendez recently proposed a new definition of graph convergence called structural convergence. The structural convergence framework is based on the probability of satisfaction of logical formulas from a fixed…
Monadically stable and monadically NIP classes of structures were initially studied in the context of model theory and defined in logical terms. They have recently attracted attention in the area of structural graph theory, as they…
We prove that posets of bounded height whose cover graphs belong to a fixed class with bounded expansion have bounded dimension. Bounded expansion, introduced by Ne\v{s}et\v{r}il and Ossona de Mendez as a model for sparsity in graphs, is a…
We consider first order expressible properties of random perfect graphs. That is, we pick a graph $G_n$ uniformly at random from all (labelled) perfect graphs on $n$ vertices and consider the probability that it satisfies some graph…
The main problem in the area of graph property testing is to understand which graph properties are \emph{testable}, which means that with constantly many queries to any input graph $G$, a tester can decide with good probability whether $G$…
Let D(G) be the smallest quantifier depth of a first order formula which is true for a graph G but false for any other non-isomorphic graph. This can be viewed as a measure for the first order descriptive complexity of G. We will show that…
We study property testing of properties that are definable in first-order logic (FO) in the bounded-degree graph and relational structure models. We show that any FO property that is defined by a formula with quantifier prefix…
We study first-order model checking, by which we refer to the problem of deciding whether or not a given first-order sentence is satisfied by a given finite structure. In particular, we aim to understand on which sets of sentences this…
We say that a first order formula A distinguishes a graph G from another graph G' if A is true on G and false on G'. Provided G and G' are non-isomorphic, let D(G,G') denote the minimal quantifier rank of a such formula. We prove that, if G…
Let $\mathcal G$ be an addable, minor-closed class of graphs. We prove that the zero-one law holds in monadic second-order logic (MSO) for the random graph drawn uniformly at random from all {\em connected} graphs in $\mathcal G$ on $n$…
We deal with first-order definability in the embeddability ordering $( \mathcal{D}; \leq)$ of finite directed graphs. A directed graph $G\in \mathcal{D}$ is said to be embeddable into $G' \in \mathcal{D}$ if there exists an injective graph…
We consider graph properties that can be checked from labels, i.e., bit sequences, of logarithmic length attached to vertices. We prove that there exists such a labeling for checking a first-order formula with free set variables in the…
A well-established research line in structural and algorithmic graph theory is characterizing graph classes by listing their minimal obstructions. When this list is finite for some class $\mathcal C$ we obtain a polynomial-time algorithm…
First-order logic is known to have limited expressive power over finite structures. It enjoys in particular the locality property, which states that first-order formulae cannot have a global view of a structure. This limitation ensures on…
Graph-modification problems, where we modify a graph by adding or deleting vertices or edges or contracting edges to obtain a graph in a {\it simpler} class, is a well-studied optimization problem in all algorithmic paradigms including…
The notions of bounded expansion and nowhere denseness have been applied very successfully in algorithmic graph theory. We study the corresponding notions of directed bounded expansion and nowhere crownfulness on directed graphs. We show…
The generalised colouring numbers $\mathrm{adm}_r(G)$, $\mathrm{col}_r(G)$, and $\mathrm{wcol}_r(G)$ were introduced by Kierstead and Yang as generalisations of the usual colouring number, also known as the degeneracy of a graph, and have…
We revisit the work studying homomorphism preservation for first-order logic in sparse classes of structures initiated in [Atserias et al., JACM 2006] and [Dawar, JCSS 2010]. These established that first-order logic has the homomorphism…
It is not hard to write a first order formula which is true for a given graph G but is false for any graph not isomorphic to G. The smallest number $(G) of nested quantifiers in a such formula can serve as a measure for the ``first order…