A Faster Tree-Decomposition Based Algorithm for Counting Linear Extensions

Kustaa Kangas, Mikko Koivisto, Sami Salonen

Abstract: We consider the problem of counting the linear extensions of an n-element poset whose cover graph has treewidth at most t. We show that the problem can be solved in time O~(n^{t+3}), where O~ suppresses logarithmic factors. Our algorithm is based on fast multiplication of multivariate polynomials, and so differs radically from a previous O~(n^{t+4})-time inclusion - exclusion algorithm. We also investigate the algorithm from a practical point of view. We observe that the running time is not well characterized by the parameters n and t alone, fixing of which leaves large variance in running times due to uncontrolled features of the selected optimal-width tree decomposition. For selecting an efficient tree decomposition we adopt the method of empirical hardness models, and show that it typically enables picking a tree decomposition that is significantly more efficient than a random optimal-width tree decomposition.