English

Canonical graph decompositions via local separations

Combinatorics 2026-03-20 v2

Abstract

Every finite graph GG can be decomposed in a canonical way that displays its local connectivity-structure [DJKK26]. These decompositions are defined via a suitable more tree-like covering of GG, whose tangle-tree structure is projected down to GG. The covering graphs needed here are almost always infinite, and their tangle-tree structure is defined in terms of their (global) low-order separations. The canonical decompositions they induce on GG are therefore not computable following their definition. We reconstruct these decompositions of GG from finite information in GG itself that is sufficiently local to be reflected in the cover. This involves the reconstruction of canonical tangle structure in terms of a new theory of local separations in finite graphs, which we develop for this purpose. As an application, we find that the canonical graph-decompositions from [DJKK26] are computable.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2501.16170,
  title  = {Canonical graph decompositions via local separations},
  author = {Raphael W. Jacobs and Paul Knappe and Jan Kurkofka},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.16170},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

65 pages, 18 figures; updated version incorporating valuable feedback by Reinhard Diestel; new shortened title

R2 v1 2026-06-28T21:19:55.523Z