Finding Small Weight Isomorphisms with Additional Constraints is Fixed-Parameter Tractable

Abstract

Lubiw showed that several variants of Graph Isomorphism are NP-complete, where the solutions are required to satisfy certain additional constraints [SICOMP 10, 1981]. One of these, called Isomorphism With Restrictions, is to decide for two given graphs X_1=(V,E_1) and X_2=(V,E_2) and a subset R\subseteq V\times V of forbidden pairs whether there is an isomorphism \pi from X_1 to X_2 such that i^\pi\ne j for all (i,j)\in R. We prove that this problem and several of its  generalizations are in fact in \FPT:

- The problem of deciding whether there is an isomorphism between two graphs that moves k vertices and satisfies Lubiw-style constraints is in FPT, with k and the size of R as parameters. The problem remains in FPT even if a conjunction of disjunctions of such constraints is allowed. As a consequence of the main result it follows that the problem to decide whether there is an isomorphism that moves exactly k vertices is in FPT. This solves a question left open in our article on exact weight automorphisms [STACS 2017].

- When the number of moved vertices is unrestricted, finding isomorphisms that satisfy a CNF of Lubiw-style constraints can be solved in FPT with access to a GI oracle.

- Checking if there is an isomorphism π between two graphs with complexity t is also in FPT with t as parameter, where the complexity of a permutation is the Cayley measure defined as the minimum number t such that \pi can be expressed as a product of t transpositions.

- We consider a more general problem in which the vertex set of a graph X is partitioned into Red and Blue, and we are interested in an automorphism that stabilizes Red and Blue and moves exactly k vertices in Blue, where k is the parameter. This problem was introduced by [Downey and Fellows 1999], and we showed [STACS 2017] that it is W[1]-hard even with color classes of size 4 inside Red. Now, for color classes of size at most 3 inside Red, we show the problem is in FPT.

In the non-parameterized setting, all these problems are NP-complete. Also, they all generalize in several ways the problem to decide whether there is an isomorphism between two graphs that moves at most k vertices, shown to be in FPT by Schweitzer [ESA 2011].