Abstract: We address two long-standing questions about finding good separators in graphs of bounded genus and degree: (1) It is a classical result of J. Gilbert, J. Hutchinson, and R. Tarjan [J. Algorithms 5, 391–407 (1984; Zbl 0556.05022)] that one can find asymptotically optimal separators on these graphs if given both the graph and an embedding of it onto a low genus surface. Does there exist a simple, efficient algorithm to find these separators, given only the graph and not the embedding? (2) In practice, spectral partitioning heuristics work extremely well on these graphs. Is there a theoretical reason why this should be the case? We resolve these two questions by showing that a simple spectral algorithm finds separators of cut ratio \(O(\sqrt{g/n})\) and vertex bisectors of size \(O(\sqrt{gn})\) in these graphs, both of which are optimal. As our main technical lemma, we prove an \(O(g/n)\) bound on the second smallest eigenvalue of the Laplacian of such graphs and show that this is tight, thereby resolving a conjecture of Spielman and Teng. While this lemma is essentially combinatorial in nature, its proof comes from continuous mathematics, drawing on the theory of circle packings and the geometry of compact Riemann surfaces.
For an extended version, see the published article [SIAM J. Comput. 35, No. 4, 882–902 (2006; Zbl 1096.05048)].
For the entire collection see [Zbl 1074.68504].