(First-order) transductions are a basic notion capturing graph modifications that can be described in first-order logic. In this work, we propose an efficient algorithmic method to approximately reverse the application of a transduction, assuming the source graph is sparse. Precisely, for any graph class C that has structurally bounded expansion (i.e., can be transduced from a class of bounded expansion), we give an O(n4)-time algorithm that given a graph G∈ C, computes a vertex-colored graph H such that G can be recovered from H using a first-order interpretation and H belongs to a graph class D of bounded expansion. This answers an open problem raised by Gajarský et al. [ACM TOCL, ’20]. In fact, for our procedure to work we only need to assume that C is monadically stable (i.e., does not transduce the class of all half-graphs) and has inherently linear neighborhood complexity (i.e., the neighborhood complexity is linear in all graph classes transducible from C). This renders the conclusion that the graph classes satisfying these two properties coincide with classes of structurally bounded expansion.

We prove that the class of 3D-grids cannot be transduced from planar graphs, and more generally, from any class of graphs of bounded genus. To prove our result, we introduce a new structural tool called slice decompositions and study its properties. We show that every graph class transducible from a class of graphs of bounded genus is a perturbation of a graph class that admits slice decompositions. Moreover, we show that edge-stable graph classes that admit slice decomposition are transducible from weakly sparse graph classes that admits slice decompositions.

Graph classes of bounded tree rank were introduced recently in the context of the model checking problem for first-order logic of graphs. These graph classes are a common generalization of graph classes of bounded degree and bounded treedepth, and they are a special case of graph classes of bounded expansion. We introduce a notion of decomposition for these classes and show that these decompositions can be efficiently computed. Also, a natural extension of our decomposition leads to a new characterization and decomposition for graph classes of bounded expansion (and an efficient algorithm computing this decomposition). We then focus on interpretations of graph classes of bounded tree rank. We give a characterization of graph classes interpretable in graph classes of tree rank 2. Importantly, our characterization leads to an efficient sparsification procedure: For any graph class 𝒞 interpretable in a graph class of tree rank at most 2, there is a polynomial time algorithm that to any G ∈ 𝒞 computes a (sparse) graph H from a fixed graph class of tree rank at most 2 such that G = I(H) for a fixed interpretation I. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first efficient "interpretation reversal" result that generalizes the result of Gajarský et al. [LICS 2016], who showed an analogous result for graph classes interpretable in classes of graphs of bounded degree.

It is known that for subgraph-closed graph classes the first-order model checking problem is fixed-parameter tractable if and only if the class is nowhere dense [Grohe, Kreutzer, Siebertz, STOC 2014]. However, the dependency on the formula size is non-elementary, and in fact, this is unavoidable even for the class of all trees [Frick and Grohe, LICS 2002]. On the other hand, it is known that the dependency is elementary for classes of bounded degree [Frick and Grohe, LICS 2002] as well as for classes of bounded pathwidth [Lampis, ICALP 2023]. In this paper we generalise these results and almost completely characterise subgraph-closed graph classes for which the model checking problem is fixed-parameter tractable with an elementary dependency on the formula size. Those are the graph classes for which there exists a number d such that for every r, some tree of depth d and size bounded by an elementary function of r is avoided as an (≤r)-subdivision in all graphs in the class. In particular, this implies that if the class in question excludes a fixed tree as a topological minor, then first-order model checking for graphs in the class is fixed-parameter tractable with an elementary dependency on the formula size.

Abstract. We confirm a conjecture of Gartland and Lokshtanov [SODA 2023]: if for a hereditary graph class [Formula: see text] there exists a constant [Formula: see text] such that no member of [Formula: see text] contains a [Formula: see text]-creature as an induced subgraph or a [Formula: see text]-skinny-ladder as an induced minor, then there exists a polynomial [Formula: see text] such that every [Formula: see text] contains at most [Formula: see text] minimal separators. By a result of Fomin, Todinca, and Villanger [ SIAM J. Comput., 44 (2015), pp. 54–87] the latter entails the existence of polynomial-time algorithms for Maximum Weight Independent Set, Feedback Vertex Set and many other problems, when restricted to an input graph from [Formula: see text]. Furthermore, as shown by Gartland and Lokshtanov, our result implies a full dichotomy of hereditary graph classes defined by a finite set of forbidden induced subgraphs into tame (admitting a polynomial bound of the number of minimal separators) and feral (containing infinitely many graphs with exponential number of minimal separators).

A class of graphs $\mathscr{C}$ is monadically stable if for any unary expansion $\widehat{\mathscr{C}}$ of $\mathscr{C}$, one cannot interpret, in first-order logic, arbitrarily long linear orders in graphs from $\widehat{\mathscr{C}}$. It is known that nowhere dense graph classes are monadically stable; these encompass most of the studied concepts of sparsity in graphs, including graph classes that exclude a fixed topological minor. On the other hand, monadic stability is a property expressed in purely model-theoretic terms and hence it is also suited for capturing structure in dense graphs. For several years, it has been suspected that one can create a structure theory for monadically stable graph classes that mirrors the theory of nowhere dense graph classes in the dense setting. In this work we provide a step in this direction by giving a characterization of monadic stability through the Flipper game: a game on a graph played by Flipper, who in each round can complement the edge relation between any pair of vertex subsets, and Connector, who in each round localizes the game to a ball of bounded radius. This is an analog of the Splitter game, which characterizes nowhere dense classes of graphs (Grohe, Kreutzer, and Siebertz, J.ACM'17). We give two different proofs of our main result. The first proof uses tools from model theory, and it exposes an additional property of monadically stable graph classes that is close in spirit to definability of types. Also, as a byproduct, we give an alternative proof of the recent result of Braunfeld and Laskowski (arXiv 2209.05120) that monadic stability for graph classes coincides with existential monadic stability. The second proof relies on the recently introduced notion of flip-wideness (Dreier, Mählmann, Siebertz, and Toruńczyk, ICALP 2023) and provides an efficient algorithm to compute Flipper's moves in a winning strategy.

We confirm a conjecture of Gartland and Lokshtanov [arXiv:2007.08761]: if for a hereditary graph class 𝒢 there exists a constant k such that no member of 𝒢 contains a k-creature as an induced subgraph or a k-skinny-ladder as an induced minor, then there exists a polynomial p such that every G ∈ 𝒢 contains at most p(|V(G)|) minimal separators. By a result of Fomin, Todinca, and Villanger [SIAM J. Comput. 2015] the latter entails the existence of polynomial-time algorithms for Maximum Weight Independent Set, Feedback Vertex Set and many other problems, when restricted to an input graph from 𝒢. Furthermore, as shown by Gartland and Lokshtanov, our result implies a full dichotomy of hereditary graph classes defined by a finite set of forbidden induced subgraphs into tame (admitting a polynomial bound of the number of minimal separators) and feral (containing infinitely many graphs with exponential number of minimal separators).

We study problems connected to first-order logic in graphs of bounded twin-width. Inspired by the approach of Bonnet et al. [FOCS 2020], we introduce a robust methodology of local types and describe their behavior in contraction sequences - the decomposition notion underlying twin-width. We showcase the applicability of the methodology by proving the following two algorithmic results. In both statements, we fix a first-order formula φ(x_1,…,x_k) and a constant d, and we assume that on input we are given a graph G together with a contraction sequence of width at most d. - One can in time 𝒪(n) construct a data structure that can answer the following queries in time 𝒪(log log n): given w_1,…,w_k, decide whether φ(w_1,…,w_k) holds in G. - After 𝒪(n)-time preprocessing, one can enumerate all tuples w₁,…,w_k that satisfy φ(x_1,…,x_k) in G with 𝒪(1) delay. In the first case, the query time can be reduced to 𝒪(1/ε) at the expense of increasing the construction time to 𝒪(n^{1+ε}), for any fixed ε > 0. Finally, we also apply our tools to prove the following statement, which shows optimal bounds on the VC density of set systems that are first-order definable in graphs of bounded twin-width. - Let G be a graph of twin-width d, A be a subset of vertices of G, and φ(x_1,…,x_k,y_1,…,y_l) be a first-order formula. Then the number of different subsets of A^k definable by φ using l-tuples of vertices from G as parameters, is bounded by O(|A|^l).

An interpretation is an operation that maps an input graph to an output graph by redefining its edge relation using a first-order formula. This rich framework includes operations such as taking the complement or a fixed power of a graph as (very) special cases.

We give new decomposition theorems for classes of graphs that can be transduced in first-order logic from classes of sparse graphs — more precisely, from classes of bounded expansion and nowhere dense classes. In both cases, the decomposition takes the form of a single colored rooted tree of bounded depth where, in addition, there can be links between nodes that are not related in the tree. The constraint is that the structure formed by the tree and the links has to be sparse. Using the decomposition theorem for transductions of nowhere dense classes, we show that they admit low-shrubdepth covers of size , where n is the vertex count and ε > 0 is any fixed real. This solves an open problem posed by Gajarský et al. (ACM TOCL ’20) and also by Briański et al. (SIDMA ’21).

We prove that every class of graphs that is monadically stable and has bounded twin-width can be transduced from some class with bounded sparse twin-width. This generalizes analogous results for classes of bounded linear cliquewidth [Nešetřil et al. 2021b] and of bounded cliquewidth [Nešetřil et al. 2021a]. It also implies that monadically stable classes of bounded twin-width are linearly χ-bounded.

Shrub-depth is a width measure of graphs which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the smallest depth of a tree into which a graph can be encoded. It can be thought of as a low-depth variant of clique-width (or rank-width), similarly as treedepth is a low-depth variant of treewidth. We present an fpt algorithm for computing decompositions of graphs of bounded shrub-depth. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first algorithm which computes the decomposition directly, without use of rank-width decompositions and FO or MSO logic.

We study the first-order (FO) model checking problem of dense graph classes, namely, those that have FO interpretations in (or are FO transductions of) some sparse graph classes. We give a structural characterization of the graph classes that are FO interpretable in graphs of bounded degree. This characterization allows us to efficiently compute such an FO interpretation for an input graph. As a consequence, we obtain an FPT algorithm for successor-invariant FO model checking on any graph class that is FO interpretable in (or an FO transduction of) a graph class of bounded degree. The approach we use to obtain these results may also be of independent interest.

The notion of bounded expansion captures uniform sparsity of graph classes and renders various algorithmic problems that are hard in general tractable. In particular, the model-checking problem for first-order logic is fixed-parameter tractable over such graph classes. With the aim of generalizing such results to dense graphs, we introduce classes of graphs with structurally bounded expansion , defined as first-order transductions of classes of bounded expansion. As a first step towards their algorithmic treatment, we provide their characterization analogous to the characterization of classes of bounded expansion via low treedepth covers (or colorings), replacing treedepth by its dense analogue called shrubdepth.

We construct a fixed parameter algorithm parameterized by d and k that takes as an input a graph G' obtained from a d-degenerate graph G by complementing on at most k arbitrary subsets of the vertex set of G and outputs a graph H such that G and H agree on all but f(d,k) vertices. Our work is motivated by the first order model checking in graph classes that are first order interpretable in classes of sparse graphs. We derive as a corollary that if G is a graph class with bounded expansion, then the first order model checking is fixed parameter tractable in the class of all graphs that can obtained from a graph G in G by complementing on at most k arbitrary subsets of the vertex set of G; this implies an earlier result that the first order model checking is fixed parameter tractable in graph classes interpretable in classes of graphs with bounded maximum degree.

We study the FO model checking problem of dense graph classes, namely those which are FO-interpretable in some sparse graph classes. Note that if an input dense graph is given together with the corresponding FO interpretation in a sparse graph, one can easily solve the model checking problem using the existing algorithms for sparse graph classes. However, if the assumed interpretation is not given, then the situation is markedly harder.

Over the past two decades the main focus of research into first-order (FO) model checking algorithms have been sparse relational structures-culminating in the FPT-algorithm by Grohe, Kreutzer and Siebertz for FO model checking of nowhere dense classes of graphs [STOC'14], with dense structures starting to attract attention only recently. Bova, Ganian and Szeider [CSL-LICS'14] initiated the study of the complexity of FO model checking on partially ordered sets (posets). Bova, Ganian and Szeider showed that model checking existential FO logic is fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) on posets of bounded width, where the width of a poset is the size of the largest antichain in the poset. The existence of an FPT algorithm for general FO model checking on posets of bounded width, however, remained open. We resolve this question in the positive by giving an algorithm that takes as its input an n-element poset P of width w and an FO logic formula φ, and determines whether φ holds on P in time f(φ, w) · n2.

We prove, in the universe of trees of bounded height, that for any MSO formula with $m$ variables there exists a set of kernels such that the size of each of these kernels can be bounded by an elementary function of m. This yields a faster MSO model checking algorithm for trees of bounded height than the one for general trees. From that we obtain, by means of interpretation, corresponding results for the classes of graphs of bounded tree-depth (MSO_2) and shrub-depth (MSO_1), and thus we give wide generalizations of Lampis' (ESA 2010) and Ganian's (IPEC 2011) results. In the second part of the paper we use this kernel structure to show that FO has the same expressive power as MSO_1 on the graph classes of bounded shrub-depth. This makes bounded shrub-depth a good candidate for characterization of the hereditary classes of graphs on which FO and MSO_1 coincide, a problem recently posed by Elberfeld, Grohe, and Tantau (LICS 2012).