Approximately counting embeddings into random graphs

Let H be a graph, and let C _H (G) be the number of (subgraph isomorphic) copies of H contained in a graph G. We investigate the fundamental problem of estimating C _H (G). Previous results cover only a few specific instances of this general problem, for example, the case when H has degree at most one (monomer-dimer problem). In this paper, we present the first general subcase of the subgraph isomorphism counting problem which is almost always efficiently approximable. The results rely on a new graph decomposition technique. Informally, the new decomposition is a labeling of the vertices generating a sequence of bipartite graphs. The decomposition permits us to break the problem of counting embeddings of large subgraphs into that of counting embeddings of small subgraphs. Using this, we present a simple randomized algorithm for the counting problem. For all decomposable graphs H and all graphs G, the algorithm is an unbiased estimator. Furthermore, for all graphs H having a decomposition where each of the bipartite graphs generated is small and almost all graphs G, the algorithm is a fully polynomial randomized approximation scheme. We show that the graph classes of H for which we obtain a fully polynomial randomized approximation scheme for almost all G includes graphs of degree at most two, bounded-degree forests, bounded-width grid graphs, subdivision of bounded-degree graphs, and major subclasses of outerplanar graphs, series-parallel graphs and planar graphs, whereas unbounded-width grid graphs are excluded.