Graph Automorphism - Computational Complexity

Computational Complexity

Constructing the automorphism group is at least as difficult (in terms of its computational complexity) as solving the graph isomorphism problem, determining whether two given graphs correspond vertex-for-vertex and edge-for-edge. For, G and H are isomorphic if and only if the disconnected graph formed by the disjoint union of graphs G and H has an automorphism that swaps the two components.

The graph automorphism problem is the problem of testing whether a graph has a nontrivial automorphism. It belongs to the class NP of computational complexity. Similar to the graph isomorphism problem, it is unknown whether it has a polynomial time algorithm or it is NP-complete. There is a polynomial time algorithm for solving the graph automorphism problem for graphs where vertex degrees are bounded by a constant (Luks 1982). It is known that the graph automorphism problem is polynomial-time many-one reducible to the graph isomorphism problem, but the converse reduction is unknown.

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