Exact Matching of Random Graphs with Constant Correlation

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of graph matching or network alignment for Erdős--Rényi graphs, which can be viewed as a noisy average-case version of the graph isomorphism problem. Let $G$ and $G'$ be $G(n, p)$ Erdős--Rényi graphs marginally, identified with their adjacency matrices. Assume that $G$ and $G'$ are correlated such that $\mathbb{E}[G_{ij} G'_{ij}] = p(1-α)$. For a permutation $π$ representing a latent matching between the vertices of $G$ and $G'$, denote by $G^π$ the graph obtained from permuting the vertices of $G$ by $π$. Observing $G^π$ and $G'$, we aim to recover the matching $π$. In this work, we show that for every $\varepsilon \in (0,1]$, there is $n_0>0$ depending on $\varepsilon$ and absolute constants $α_0, R > 0$ with the following property. Let $n \ge n_0$, $(1+\varepsilon) \log n \le np \le n^{\frac{1}{R \log \log n}}$, and $0 < α< \min(α_0,\varepsilon/4)$. There is a polynomial-time algorithm $F$ such that $\mathbb{P}\{F(G^π,G')=π\}=1-o(1)$. This is the first polynomial-time algorithm that recovers the exact matching between vertices of correlated Erdős--Rényi graphs with constant correlation with high probability. The algorithm is based on comparison of partition trees associated with the graph vertices.