Title
Upper Bounds on the Quantifier Depth for Graph Differentiation in First Order Logic.
Abstract
We show that on graphs with n vertices the 2-dimensional Weisfeiler-Leman algorithm requires at most O(n2 / log(n)) iterations to reach stabilization. This in particular shows that the previously best, trivial upper bound of O(n2) is asymptotically not tight. In the logic setting this translates to the statement that if two graphs of size n can be distinguished by a formula in first order logic with counting with 3 variables (i.e., in C3) then they can also be distinguished by a C3-formula that has quantifier depth at most O(n2 / log(n)). To prove the result we define a game between two players that enables us to decouple the causal dependencies between the processes happening simultaneously over several iterations of the algorithm. This allows us to treat large color classes and small color classes separately. As part of our proof we show that for graphs with bounded color class size, the number of iterations until stabilization is at most linear in the number of vertices. This also yields a corresponding statement in first order logic with counting. Similar results can be obtained for the respective logic without counting quantifiers, i.e., for the logic L3.
Year
DOI
Venue
2016
10.1145/2933575.2933595
LICS
Keywords
DocType
Volume
first order logic, counting quantifiers, quantifier depth, Weisfeiler-Leman
Conference
abs/1605.03480
ISSN
ISBN
Citations 
1043-6871
978-1-4503-4391-6
3
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.38
15
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Sandra Kiefer192.50
Pascal Schweitzer221416.94