DIMACS TR: 94-29

An NC algorithm for depth-first search of graphs of bounded genus



Authors: Justin R. Smith and Olga Rayskina

ABSTRACT

In this paper we develop a deterministic NC algorithm for performing a depth-first search on an undirected graph embedded in a surface of bounded genus. The algorithm runs on a SIMD P-RAM computer like the Connection Machine. The problem of depth-first search of graphs is interesting for a number of reasons. Many well-known sequential algorithms are based upon performing a depth-first search of a graph and the difficulty in finding a parallel algorithm for depth-first search is a fundamental obstacle to parallelizing the other algorithms. In addition, it has been proved that the problem of finding a lexicographically-first depth-first search of a graph is P-complete. Part I of this paper, (Justin Smith, ``Parallel algorithms for depth-first searches I. The planar case'', SIAM J. Comput., vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 814--830, 1986), developed such an algorithm for a depth-first search on a planar graph. The algorithm presented there has been extended and generalized by a number of people. Aggarwal and Anderson developed a Random NC algorithm for depth-first search on general graphs in (Alok Aggarwal and Richard Anderson, ``A random NC algorithm for depth-first-search'', in Symposium on the Theory of Computing. 1987, vol. 19, pp. 325--334, ACM) and Shannon improved upon the execution time and number of processors required to perform depth-first search on a planar graph in (Gregory Shannon, ``A linear-processor algorithm for depth-first search in planar graphs'', Inform. Process. Lett., vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 119--124, 1988). Our algorithm executes in O((g + 1)lg n)-time, using O(n^2) processors.

Paper available at: ftp://dimacs.rutgers.edu/pub/dimacs/TechnicalReports/TechReports/1994/94-29.ps
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