Parity Separation: A Scientifically Proven Method for Permanent Weight Loss

Given an edge-weighted graph G, let PerfMatch(G) denote the weighted sum over all perfect matchings M in G, weighting each matching M by the product of weights of edges in M. If G is unweighted, this plainly counts the perfect matchings of G. In this paper, we introduce parity separation, a new method for reducing PerfMatch to unweighted instances: For graphs G with edge-weights 1 and −1, we construct two unweighted graphs G1 and G2 such that PerfMatch(G) = PerfMatch(G1) − PerfMatch(G2). This yields a novel weight removal technique for counting perfect matchings, in addition to those known from classical #P-hardness proofs. Our technique is based upon the Holant framework and matchgates. We derive the following applications: Firstly, an alternative #P-completeness proof for counting unweighted perfect matchings. Secondly, C=P-completeness for deciding whether two given unweighted graphs have the same number of perfect matchings. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first C=P-completeness result for the “equality-testing version” of any natural counting problem that is not already #P-hard under parsimonious reductions. Thirdly, an alternative tight lower bound for counting unweighted perfect matchings under the counting exponential-time hypothesis #ETH. 1998 ACM Subject Classification G.2.1 Combinatorics, F.1.3 Complexity Measures and Classes