Current Algorithms for Detecting Subgraphs of Bounded Treewidth are Probably Optimal
The Subgraph Isomorphism problem is of considerable importance in computer science. We examine the problem when the pattern graph H is of bounded treewidth, as occurs in a variety of applications. This problem has a well-known algorithm via color-coding that runs in time O(n^tw(H)+1) [Alon, Yuster, Zwick'95], where n is the number of vertices of the host graph G. While there are pattern graphs known for which Subgraph Isomorphism can be solved in an improved running time of O(n^tw(H)+1-ε) or even faster (e.g. for k-cliques), it is not known whether such improvements are possible for all patterns. The only known lower bound rules out time n^o(tw(H) / log(tw(H))) for any class of patterns of unbounded treewidth assuming the Exponential Time Hypothesis [Marx'07]. In this paper, we demonstrate the existence of maximally hard pattern graphs H that require time n^tw(H)+1-o(1). Specifically, under the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis (SETH), a standard assumption from fine-grained complexity theory, we prove the following asymptotic statement for large treewidth t: For any ε > 0 there exists t ≥ 3 and a pattern graph H of treewidth t such that Subgraph Isomorphism on pattern H has no algorithm running in time O(n^t+1-ε). Under the more recent 3-uniform Hyperclique hypothesis, we even obtain tight lower bounds for each specific treewidth t ≥ 3: For any t ≥ 3 there exists a pattern graph H of treewidth t such that for any ε>0 Subgraph Isomorphism on pattern H has no algorithm running in time O(n^t+1-ε). In addition to these main results, we explore (1) colored and uncolored problem variants (and why they are equivalent for most cases), (2) Subgraph Isomorphism for tw < 3, (3) Subgraph Isomorphism parameterized by pathwidth, and (4) a weighted problem variant.
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