Events

Title: Cayley graphs, association schemes and state transfer

Abstract: The aim of this talk is to give some examples of how association schemes can be used as a tool to study certain properties of Cayley graphs. In particular, they contribute to our long-term goal of characterizing perfect state transfer in Cayley graphs. The talk is based on the following paper https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.09802.

Title: Recursions and Proofs in Coxeter-Catalan combinatorics

Abstract:  The collection of parking functions under a natural Sn-action (which has Catalan-many orbits) has been a central object in Algebraic Combinatorics since the work of Haiman more than 30 years ago. One of the lines of research spawned around it was towards defining and studying analogous objects for real and complex reflection groups W; the main candidates are known as the W-non-nesting and W-non-crossing parking functions.

Title: Stochastic Minimum Norm Combinatorial Optimization

Abstract:  In this work, we introduce and study stochastic minimum-norm optimization. We have an underlying combinatorial optimization problem where the costs involved are random variables with given distributions; each feasible solution induces a random multidimensional cost vector. The goal is to find a solution that minimizes the expected norm of the induced cost vector, for a given monotone, symmetric norm. We give a framework for designing approximation algorithms for stochastic minimum-norm optimization and apply it to give approximation algorithms for stochastic minimum-norm versions of load balancing and spanning tree problems.

Title: Forbidding some induced cycles in a graph

Abstract:  We call an induced cycle of length at least four a hole. The parity of a hole is the parity of its length. Forbidding holes of certain lengths in a graph has deep structural implications. In 2006, Chudnovksy, Seymour, Robertson, and Thomas famously proved that a graph is perfect if and only if it does not contain an odd hole or a complement of an odd hole. In 2002, Conforti, Cornuéjols, Kapoor, and Vušković provided a structural description of the class of even-hole-free graphs.

Title: Graphs, curvature, and local discrepancy

Abstract: Spectral graph theory, the use of eigenvalues to study graphs, gives an important window into many properties of graphs.  One of the reasons for this is that the eigenvalues can be used to certify the `pseudo-randomness' of the edge set of a graph.  In recent years, several notions of discrete curvature have been introduced that gives a 'local' way (depending on the neighborhood structure of vertices) to study some of the same properties that eigenvalues can capture. 

Title: The Hat Guessing Number of Graphs

Abstract:  The hat guessing number HG(G) of a graph G on n vertices is defined in terms of the following game: n players are placed on the n vertices of G, each wearing a hat whose color is arbitrarily chosen from a set of q possible colors. Each player can see the hat colors of his neighbors, but not his own hat color. All of the players are asked to guess their own hat colors simultaneously, according to a predetermined guessing strategy and the hat colors they see, where no communication between them is allowed. The hat guessing number HG(G) is the largest integer q such that there exists a guessing strategy guaranteeing at least one correct guess for any hat assignment of q possible colors.

Title: Algorithms for Analytic Combinatorics in Several Variables

Abstract: In this presentation we will see how to apply the theory of complex analysis to study multivariate generating series by looking at several examples. Specifically, given a rational bivariate generating function G(x, y)/H(x, y) with coefficients f_{i, j} the objective is algorithmically determine asymptotic formulas to approximate f_{rn, sn} as n goes to infinity, for fixed positive integers r and s.

Title: Approximation algorithms for stochastic orienteering  

Abstract: This week we revisit the stochastic orienteering problem in which we are given a metric graph where each node has a deterministic reward and a random size. The goal is to adaptively decide on which nodes to visit to maximize the expected reward, while not exceeding the budget B on the distance plus the size of jobs processed.

Title: Approximating Weighted Connectivity Augmentation below Factor 2

Abstract:  The Weighted Connectivity Augmentation Problem (WCAP) asks to increase the edge-connectivity of a graph in the cheapest possible way by adding edges from a given set. It is one of the most elementary network design problems for which no better-than-2 approximation algorithm has been known, whereas 2-approximations can be easily obtained through a variety of well-known techniques.

Title: Exact Zarankiewicz numbers through linear hypergraphs

Abstract: The \emph{Zarankiewicz number} $Z_{2,2}(m,n)$ is usually defined as the maximum number of edges in a bipartite graph with parts of sizes $m$ and $n$ that has no $K_{2,2}$ subgraph. An equivalent definition is that $Z_{2,2}(m,n)$ is the greatest total degree of a linear hypergraph with $m$ vertices and $n$ edges. A hypergraph is \emph{linear} if each pair of vertices appear together in at most one edge. The equivalence of the two definitions can be seen by considering the bipartite incidence graph of the linear hypergraph.