Finding group Steiner trees in graphs with both vertex and edge weights

Given an undirected graph and a number of vertex groups, the group Steiner trees problem is to find a tree such that (i) this tree contains at least one vertex in each vertex group; and (ii) the sum of vertex and edge weights in this tree is minimized. Solving this problem is useful in various scenarios, ranging from social networks to knowledge graphs. Most existing work focuses on solving this problem in vertex-unweighted graphs, and not enough work has been done to solve this problem in graphs with both vertex and edge weights. Here, we develop several algorithms to address this issue. Initially, we extend two algorithms from vertex-unweighted graphs to vertex- and edge-weighted graphs. The first one has no approximation guarantee, but often produces good solutions in practice. The second one has an approximation guarantee of |Γ| - 1, where |Γ| is the number of vertex groups. Since the extended (|Γ| - 1)-approximation algorithm is too slow when all vertex groups are large, we develop two new (|Γ| - 1)-approximation algorithms that overcome this weakness. Furthermore, by employing a dynamic programming approach, we develop another (|Γ| - h + 1)-approximation algorithm, where h is a parameter between 2 and |Γ|. Experiments show that, while no algorithm is the best in all cases, our algorithms considerably outperform the state of the art in many scenarios.

Residually finite tubular groups

A tubular group G is a finite graph of groups with ℤ2 vertex groups and ℤ edge groups. We characterize residually finite tubular groups: G is residually finite if and only if its edge groups are separable. Methods are provided to determine if G is residually finite. When G has a single vertex group an algorithm is given to determine residual finiteness.

The A-T-menability of some graphs of groups with cyclic edge groups

We show that certain graphs of groups with cyclic edge groups are aTmenable. In particular, this holds when each vertex group is either virtually special or acts properly and semisimply on ℍn.

RIGIDITY OF GRAPH PRODUCTS OF ABELIAN GROUPS

We show that if G is a group and G has a graph-product decomposition with finitely generated abelian vertex groups, then G has two canonical decompositions as a graph product of groups: a unique decomposition in which each vertex group is a directly indecomposable cyclic group, and a unique decomposition in which each vertex group is a finitely generated abelian group and the graph satisfies the T0 property. Our results build on results by Droms, Laurence and Radcliffe.

AXIOMATIC G1-VERTEX ALGEBRAS

Inspired by Borcherds' work on "G-vertex algebras," we formulate and study an axiomatic counterpart of Borcherds' notion of G-vertex algebra for the simplest nontrivial elementary vertex group, which we denote by G1. Specifically, we formulate a notion of axiomatic G1-vertex algebra, prove certain basic properties and give certain examples, where the notion of axiomatic G1-vertex algebra is a nonlocal generalization of the notion of vertex algebra. We also show how to construct axiomatic G1-vertex algebras from a set of compatible G1-vertex operators.

THE COMBINATION THEOREM AND QUASICONVEXITY

We show that if G is a fundamental group of a finite k-acylindrical graph of groups where every vertex group is word-hyperbolic and where every edge-monomorphism is a quasi-isometric embedding, then all the vertex groups are quasiconvex in G (the group G is word-hyperbolic by the Combination Theorem of M. Bestvina and M. Feighn). This allows one, in particular, to approximate the word metric on G by normal forms for this graph of groups.