Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Graded Sparse Graphs And Matroids, Audrey Lee, Ileana Streinu, Louis Theran

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Sparse graphs and their associated matroids play an important role in rigidity theory, where they capture the combinatorics of some families of generic minimally rigid structures. We define a new family called graded sparse graphs, arising from generically pinned bar-and-joint frameworks, and prove that they also form matroids. We also address several algorithmic problems on graded sparse graphs: Decision, Spanning, Extraction, Components, Optimization, and Extension. We sketch variations on pebble game algorithms to solve them.