In general, a graph modification problem is defined by a graph modification operation ⊠ and a target graph property 𝒫. Typically, the modification operation ⊠ may be vertex removal, edge removal, edge contraction, or edge addition and the question is, given a graph G and an integer k, whether it is possible to transform G to a graph in 𝒫 after applying k times the operation ⊠ on G. This problem has been extensively studied for particilar instantiations of ⊠ and 𝒫. In this paper we consider the general property 𝒫_ϕ of being planar and, moreover, being a model of some First-Order Logic sentence ϕ (an FOL-sentence). We call the corresponding meta-problem Graph ⊠-Modification to Planarity and ϕ and prove the following algorithmic meta-theorem: there exists a function f: ℕ² → ℕ such that, for every ⊠ and every FOL sentence ϕ, the Graph ⊠-Modification to Planarity and ϕ is solvable in f(k,|ϕ|)⋅n² time. The proof constitutes a hybrid of two different classic techniques in graph algorithms. The first is the irrelevant vertex technique that is typically used in the context of Graph Minors and deals with properties such as planarity or surface-embeddability (that are not FOL-expressible) and the second is the use of Gaifman’s Locality Theorem that is the theoretical base for the meta-algorithmic study of FOL-expressible problems.
@InProceedings{fomin_et_al:LIPIcs.ESA.2020.51, author = {Fomin, Fedor V. and Golovach, Petr A. and Stamoulis, Giannos and Thilikos, Dimitrios M.}, title = {{An Algorithmic Meta-Theorem for Graph Modification to Planarity and FOL}}, booktitle = {28th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2020)}, pages = {51:1--51:17}, series = {Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)}, ISBN = {978-3-95977-162-7}, ISSN = {1868-8969}, year = {2020}, volume = {173}, editor = {Grandoni, Fabrizio and Herman, Grzegorz and Sanders, Peter}, publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik}, address = {Dagstuhl, Germany}, URL = {https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2020.51}, URN = {urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-129172}, doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2020.51}, annote = {Keywords: Graph modification Problems, Algorithmic meta-theorems, First Order Logic, Irrelevant vertex technique, Planar graphs, Surface embeddable graphs} }
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