Randomized Algorithms (Spring 2010)/Expander graphs and rapid mixing random walks

Graph Expansion

According to wikipedia:

"Expander graphs have found extensive applications in computer science, in designing algorithms, error correcting codes, extractors, pseudorandom generators, sorting networks and robust computer networks. They have also been used in proofs of many important results in computational complexity theory, such as SL=L and the PCP theorem. In cryptography too, expander graphs are used to construct hash functions."

Expander graphs

Consider an undirected (multi)graph [math]\displaystyle{ G(V,E) }[/math], where the parallel edges between two vertices are allowed.

Some notations:

• For [math]\displaystyle{ S,T\subset V }[/math], let [math]\displaystyle{ E(S,T)=\{uv\in E\mid u\in S,v\in T\} }[/math].
• The Edge Boundary of a set [math]\displaystyle{ S\subset V }[/math], denoted [math]\displaystyle{ \partial S\, }[/math], is [math]\displaystyle{ \partial S = E(S, \bar{S}) }[/math].

Definition (Graph expansion) The expansion ratio of [math]\displaystyle{ G }[/math], is defined as [math]\displaystyle{ \phi(G)=\min_{S:|S|\le\frac{n}{2}}\frac{|\partial S|}{|S|}. }[/math]

Expander graphs are [math]\displaystyle{ d }[/math]-regular (multi)graphs with [math]\displaystyle{ d=O(1) }[/math] and [math]\displaystyle{ \phi(G)=\Omega(1) }[/math].

Existence of expander graph

We will show the existence of expander graphs by the probabilistic method. In order to do so, we need to generate random regular graphs.

Suppose that [math]\displaystyle{ d }[/math] is even. We can generate a random [math]\displaystyle{ d }[/math]-regular graph [math]\displaystyle{ G(V,E) }[/math] as follows:

• Let [math]\displaystyle{ V }[/math] be the vertex set. Uniformly and independently choose [math]\displaystyle{ \frac{d}{2} }[/math] cycles of [math]\displaystyle{ V }[/math].
• For each vertex [math]\displaystyle{ v }[/math], for every cycle, assuming that the two neighbors of [math]\displaystyle{ v }[/math] in that cycle is [math]\displaystyle{ w }[/math] and [math]\displaystyle{ u }[/math], add two edges [math]\displaystyle{ wv }[/math] and [math]\displaystyle{ uv }[/math] to [math]\displaystyle{ E }[/math].

The resulting [math]\displaystyle{ G(V,E) }[/math] is a multigraph. That is, it may have multiple edges between two vertices. We will show that [math]\displaystyle{ G(V,E) }[/math] is an expander graph with high probability. Formally, for some constant [math]\displaystyle{ d }[/math] and constant [math]\displaystyle{ \alpha }[/math],

[math]\displaystyle{ \Pr[\phi(G)\ge \alpha]=1-o(1) }[/math].

By the probabilistic method, this shows that there exist expander graphs. In fact, the above probability bound shows something much more stronger: it shows that almost every regular graph is an expander.

Recall that [math]\displaystyle{ \phi(G)=\min_{S:|S|\le\frac{n}{2}}\frac{|\partial S|}{|S|} }[/math]. We call such [math]\displaystyle{ S\subset V }[/math] that [math]\displaystyle{ \frac{|\partial S|}{|S|}\lt \alpha }[/math] a "bad [math]\displaystyle{ S }[/math]". Then [math]\displaystyle{ \phi(G)\lt \alpha }[/math] if and only if there exists a bad [math]\displaystyle{ S }[/math] of size at most [math]\displaystyle{ \frac{n}{2} }[/math]. Therefore,

[math]\displaystyle{ \begin{align} \Pr[\phi(G)\lt \alpha] &= \Pr\left[\min_{S:|S|\le\frac{n}{2}}\frac{|\partial S|}{|S|}\lt \alpha\right]\\ &= \sum_{k=1}^\frac{n}{2}\Pr[\,\exists \mbox{bad }S\mbox{ of size }k\,]\\ &\le \sum_{k=1}^\frac{n}{2}\sum_{S\in{V\choose k}}\Pr[\,S\mbox{ is bad}\,] \end{align} }[/math]

Let [math]\displaystyle{ R\subset S }[/math] be the set of vertices in [math]\displaystyle{ S }[/math] which has neighbors in [math]\displaystyle{ \bar{S} }[/math], and let [math]\displaystyle{ r=|R| }[/math]. It is obvious that [math]\displaystyle{ |\partial S|\ge r }[/math], thus, for a bad [math]\displaystyle{ S }[/math], [math]\displaystyle{ r\lt \alpha k }[/math]. Therefore, there are at most [math]\displaystyle{ \sum_{r=1}^{\alpha k}{k \choose r} }[/math] possible choices such [math]\displaystyle{ R }[/math]. For any fixed choice of [math]\displaystyle{ R }[/math], the probability that an edge picked by a vertex in [math]\displaystyle{ S-R }[/math] connects to a vertex in [math]\displaystyle{ S }[/math] is at most [math]\displaystyle{ k/n }[/math], and there are [math]\displaystyle{ d(k-r) }[/math] such edges. For any fixed [math]\displaystyle{ S }[/math] of size [math]\displaystyle{ k }[/math] and [math]\displaystyle{ R }[/math] of size [math]\displaystyle{ r }[/math], the probability that all neighbors of all vertices in [math]\displaystyle{ S-R }[/math] are in [math]\displaystyle{ S }[/math] is at most [math]\displaystyle{ \left(\frac{k}{n}\right)^{d(k-r)} }[/math]. Due to the union bound, for any fixed [math]\displaystyle{ S }[/math] of size [math]\displaystyle{ k }[/math],

[math]\displaystyle{ \begin{align} \Pr[\,S\mbox{ is bad}\,] &\le \sum_{r=1}^{\alpha k}{k \choose r}\left(\frac{k}{n}\right)^{d(k-r)} \le \alpha k {k \choose \alpha k}\left(\frac{k}{n}\right)^{dk(1-\alpha)} \end{align} }[/math]

Therefore,

[math]\displaystyle{ \begin{align} \Pr[\phi(G)\lt \alpha] &\le \sum_{k=1}^\frac{n}{2}\sum_{S\in{V\choose k}}\Pr[\,S\mbox{ is bad}\,]\\ &\le \sum_{k=1}^\frac{n}{2}{n\choose k}\alpha k {k \choose \alpha k}\left(\frac{k}{n}\right)^{dk(1-\alpha)} \\ &\le \sum_{k=1}^\frac{n}{2}\left(\frac{en}{k}\right)^k\alpha k \left(\frac{ek}{\alpha k}\right)^{\alpha k}\left(\frac{k}{n}\right)^{dk(1-\alpha)}&\quad (\mbox{Stirling formula }{n\choose k}\le\left(\frac{en}{k}\right)^k)\\ &\le \sum_{k=1}^\frac{n}{2}\exp(O(k))\left(\frac{k}{n}\right)^{k(d(1-\alpha)-1)}. \end{align} }[/math]

The last line is [math]\displaystyle{ o(1) }[/math] when [math]\displaystyle{ d\ge\frac{2}{1-\alpha} }[/math]. Therefore, [math]\displaystyle{ G }[/math] is an expander graph with expansion ratio [math]\displaystyle{ \alpha }[/math] with high probability for suitable choices of constant [math]\displaystyle{ d }[/math] and constant [math]\displaystyle{ \alpha }[/math].

Explicit constructions

We have shown that a random [math]\displaystyle{ d }[/math]-regular graph is an expander with high probability. This gives us a probabilistic way to construct expander graphs. For some applications, this is good enough. However, some applications of expander graphs in complexity theory ask for explicit constructions of expander graphs. In particular, we need a polynomial time deterministic algorithm which given a vertex [math]\displaystyle{ v }[/math] and a integer [math]\displaystyle{ k }[/math] as input, returns the [math]\displaystyle{ k }[/math]th neighbor of [math]\displaystyle{ v }[/math].

• The old way: constructions based on algebraic structures, e.g. Cayley graphs which are based on groups.
• The new way: combinatorial constructions which are based on graph operations, e.g. the zig-zag product.

This course will not cover these in detail.

Graph spectrum

The adjacency matrix of an [math]\displaystyle{ n }[/math]-vertex graph [math]\displaystyle{ G }[/math], denoted [math]\displaystyle{ A = A(G) }[/math], is an [math]\displaystyle{ n\times n }[/math] matrix where [math]\displaystyle{ A(u,v) }[/math] is the number of edges in [math]\displaystyle{ G }[/math] between vertex [math]\displaystyle{ u }[/math] and vertex [math]\displaystyle{ v }[/math] (recall that we allow parallel edges).