Lower Bounds on Dynamic Programming for Maximum Weight Independent Set
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We prove lower bounds on pure dynamic programming algorithms for maximum weight independent set (MWIS). We model such algorithms as tropical circuits, i.e., circuits that compute with max and + operations. For a graph G, an MWIS-circuit of G is a tropical circuit whose inputs correspond to vertices of G and which computes the weight of a maximum weight independent set of G for any assignment of weights to the inputs. We show that if G has treewidth w and maximum degree d, then any MWIS-circuit of G has 2^Ω(w/d) gates and that if G is planar, or more generally H-minor-free for any fixed graph H, then any MWIS-circuit of G has 2^Ω(w) gates. An MWIS-formula is an MWIS-circuit where each gate has fan-out at most one. We show that if G has treedepth t and maximum degree d, then any MWIS-formula of G has 2^Ω(t/d) gates. It follows that treewidth characterizes optimal MWIS-circuits up to polynomials for all bounded degree graphs and H-minor-free graphs, and treedepth characterizes optimal MWIS-formulas up to polynomials for all bounded degree graphs.
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