Week 10 - Graph problem complexity

OMSCS

Independent set problem

independent set

Therefore we have the following problem.

Statement

Though this problem is not known to be in NP as to verify if a set is the largest set we would require to calculate the set of largest size. However, we can edit this question to make one that is in NP.

Statement

Independent set of a given size is NP-Complete

Independent set of a given size is in NP

More over we have it is NP-Complete.

Independent set of a given size is NP-complete

Max independent set is NP-hard

Max independent set problem is NP-hard

Clique problem

Clique (graph)

So similarly with the Independent set problem we can define two problems.

Statement

Statement

Similarly to before the first problem is not know to be in NP however the second is.

Clique of a given size problem is in NP

Notice that really clique problems and independent set problems are dual to one another. Through the concept of the complement graph.

Complement graph

This is formalised through the following lemma.

Cliques in G are independent sets in the complement

So we can easily show Clique of a given size problem is NP-complete by finding a many-one reduction of Independent set of a given size.

Clique of a given size problem is NP-complete

We get a similar result for the max problem.

Max clique problem is NP-hard

Vertex cover problem

First we define a new concept.

Vertex cover

Then similarly to before we get two logical problems.

Statement

Statement

Like before the minimum problem is not known to be in NP, however the second is.

Vertex cover of a given size is NP

The vertex cover is closely related to the independent set.

Vertex cover if and only if the complement is an independent set

So we can prove Vertex cover of a given size is NP-complete by finding a many-one reduction of Independent set of a given size to it.

Vertex cover of a given size is NP-complete

From this we get the Minimum vertex cover problem is NP-hard.

Minimum vertex cover problem is NP-hard

Practice problems

From Algorithms by S. Dasgupta, C. Papadimitriou, and U. Vazirani.

8.4 NP-completeness error
8.10 Proof by generalisation
8.14 Clique + Independent set (HW 6 assessed)
8.19 Kite