Bidimensionality Theory and Algorithmic Graph Minor Theory Lecture Notes for MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi’s Tutorial

Many graph problems cannot be computed in polynomial time unless P = NP , which most computer scientists and mathematicians doubt. Examples are the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), vertex cover, and dominating set. TSP is to find a Hamiltonian cycle with the least weight in a complete weighted graph. A vertex cover of a graph is a subset of the vertices that covers all edges. A dominating set in a graph is a subset of the vertices such that each vertex is contained in the set or has a neighbour in the set. The decision problem is to answer the question whether there is a vertex cover resp. a dominating set with at most k elements. The optimization problem is to find a vertex cover resp. a dominating set of minimal size. How can we solve these problems despite their computational complexity? The four main theoretical approaches to handle NP -hard problems are the following.