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## Pavol Hell and Jaroslav Nesetril

Print publication date: 2004

Print ISBN-13: 9780198528173

Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2007

DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198528173.001.0001

# TESTING FOR THE EXISTENCE OF HOMOMORPHISMS

Chapter:
(p.142) 5 TESTING FOR THE EXISTENCE OF HOMOMORPHISMS
Source:
Graphs and Homomorphisms
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198528173.003.0005

This chapter explores the algorithmic aspects of graph homomorphisms and of similar partition problems. The highlights include the dichotomy classification of graph homomorphisms to a fixed target graph $H$; a proof of the fact that dichotomy for digraph homomorphisms would imply dichotomy for all constraint satisfaction problems; a presentation of consistency-based algorithms; and associated dualities that seem to be applicable to all known polynomial cases of the digraph homomorphism problem. The role of polymorphisms in the design of polynomial algorithms is highlighted, and it is shown that graphs with the same set of polymorphisms define polynomially equivalent problems. The polymorphism known as the majority function is shown to yield a polynomial time homomorphism testing algorithm. The dichotomy classification of list homomorphism problems for reflexive graphs is presented. List matrix partition problems are posed in the language of trigraph homomorphisms, and the richness of the associated algorithms is illustrated on the case of clique cutsets and generalized split graphs.

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