Related papers: Implementations and the independent set polynomial…
We study the complexity of approximating the independent set polynomial $Z_G(\lambda)$ of a graph $G$ with maximum degree $\Delta$ when the activity $\lambda$ is a complex number. This problem is already well understood when $\lambda$ is…
We study the computational complexity of approximately counting the number of independent sets of a graph with maximum degree Delta. More generally, for an input graph G=(V,E) and an activity lambda>0, we are interested in the quantity…
We study an algorithm for approximating the multivariate independence polynomial $Z(\mathbf{z})$, with negative and complex arguments, an object that has strong connections to combinatorics and to statistical physics. In particular, the…
We consider the problem of approximating the reachable set of a discrete-time polynomial system from a semialgebraic set of initial conditions under general semialgebraic set constraints. Assuming inclusion in a given simple set like a box…
We give nearly optimal bounds on the sample complexity of $(\widetilde{\Omega}(\epsilon),\epsilon)$-tolerant testing the $\rho$-independent set property in the dense graph setting. In particular, we give an algorithm that inspects a random…
In the $d$-Scattered Set problem we are asked to select at least $k$ vertices of a given graph, so that the distance between any pair is at least $d$. We study the problem's (in-)approximability and offer improvements and extensions of…
We study the problem of approximating the value of the matching polynomial on graphs with edge parameter $\gamma$, where $\gamma$ takes arbitrary values in the complex plane. When $\gamma$ is a positive real, Jerrum and Sinclair showed that…
It is shown in this note that approximating the number of independent sets in a $k$-uniform linear hypergraph with maximum degree at most $\Delta$ is NP-hard if $\Delta\geq 5\cdot 2^{k-1}+1$. This confirms that for the relevant sampling and…
Consider the Maximum Weight Independent Set problem for rectangles: given a family of weighted axis-parallel rectangles in the plane, find a maximum-weight subset of non-overlapping rectangles. The problem is notoriously hard both in the…
In the Maximum Independent Set problem we are asked to find a set of pairwise nonadjacent vertices in a given graph with the maximum possible cardinality. In general graphs, this classical problem is known to be NP-hard and hard to…
We prove that, unless P=NP, there is no polynomial-time algorithm to approximate within some multiplicative constant the average size of an independent set in graphs of maximum degree 6. This is a special case of a more general result for…
We introduce a new framework for reconfiguration problems, and apply it to independent sets as the first example. Suppose that we are given an independent set $I_0$ of a graph $G$, and an integer $l \ge 0$ which represents a lower bound on…
A multiset $\Lambda=\{\lambda_1,\ldots,\lambda_n\}$ of complex numbers is said to be realizable whenever there exists a nonnegative matrix of order $n$ with spectrum $\Lambda$. One of the broadest criterion that guarantees realizability is…
We give the first nonconstant lower bounds for the approximability of the Independent Set Problem on the Power Law Graphs. These bounds are of the form $n^{\epsilon}$ in the case when the power law exponent satisfies $\beta <1$. In the case…
A matching in a graph is induced if no two of its edges are joined by an edge, and finding a large induced matching is a very hard problem. Lin et al. (Approximating weighted induced matchings, Discrete Applied Mathematics 243 (2018)…
We present a series of almost settled inapproximability results for three fundamental problems. The first in our series is the subexponential-time inapproximability of the maximum independent set problem, a question studied in the area of…
We study the hard-core model defined on independent sets, where each independent set I in a graph G is weighted proportionally to $\lambda^{|I|}$, for a positive real parameter $\lambda$. For large $\lambda$, computing the partition…
We consider ILPs, where each variable corresponds to an integral point within a polytope $\mathcal{P}$, i. e., ILPs of the form $\min\{c^{\top}x\mid \sum_{p\in\mathcal P\cap \mathbb Z^d} x_p p = b, x\in\mathbb Z^{|\mathcal P\cap \mathbb…
The $\epsilon$-approximate degree of a Boolean function $f: \{-1, 1\}^n \to \{-1, 1\}$ is the minimum degree of a real polynomial that approximates $f$ to within $\epsilon$ in the $\ell_\infty$ norm. We prove several lower bounds on this…
We develop a new approach for approximating large independent sets when the input graph is a one-sided spectral expander - that is, the uniform random walk matrix of the graph has its second eigenvalue bounded away from 1. Consequently, we…