Metric embedding via shortest path decompositions

Abstract

We study the problem of embedding weighted graphs of pathwidth k into ℓp spaces. Our main result is an O(kmin{1p,12})-distortion embedding. For p=1, this is a super-exponential improvement over the best previous bound of Lee and Sidiropoulos. Our distortion bound is asymptotically tight for any fixed p >1. Our result is obtained via a novel embedding technique that is based on low depth decompositions of a graph via shortest paths. The core new idea is that given a geodesic shortest path P, we can probabilistically embed all points into 2 dimensions with respect to P. For p>2 our embedding also implies improved distortion on bounded treewidth graphs (O((klogn)1p)). For asymptotically large p, our results also implies improved distortion on graphs excluding a minor.