Narrow Results

Let G = (V,E) be a computation graph, which is a directed graph representing a straight line computation and S ⊂ V. We say a vertex v is an input vertex for S if there is an edge (v, u) such that v ∉ S and u ∈ S. We say a vertex u is an output vertex for S if there is an edge (u, v) such that u ∈ S and v ∉ S. A vertex is called a boundary vertex for a set S if it is either an input vertex or an output vertex for S. We consider the problem of determining the minimum value of boundary size of S over all sets of size M in an infinite directed grid. This problem is related to the vertex isoperimetric parameter of a graph, and is motivated by the need for deriving a lower bound for memory traffic for a computation graph representing a financial application. We first extend the notion of vertex isoperimetric parameter for undirected graphs to computation graphs, and then provide a complete solution for this problem for all M. In particular, we show that a set S of size M = 3k² + 3k + 1 vertices of an infinite directed grid, the boundary size must be at least 6k + 3, and this is obtained when the vertices in S are arranged in a regular hexagonal shape with side k + 1.