An Escape Time Formulation for Subgraph Detection and Partitioning of Directed Graphs

SIAM Journal on Matrix Analysis and Applications, Volume 45, Issue 1, Page 685-711, March 2024.
Abstract. We provide a rearrangement based algorithm for detection of subgraphs of k vertices with long escape times for directed or undirected networks that is not combinatorially complex to compute. Complementing other notions of densest subgraphs and graph cuts, our method is based on the mean hitting time required for a random walker to leave a designated set and hit the complement. We provide a new relaxation of this notion of hitting time on a given subgraph and use that relaxation to construct a subgraph detection algorithm that can be computed easily and a generalization to K-partitioning schemes. Using a modification of the subgraph detector on each component, we propose a graph partitioner that identifies regions where random walks live for comparably large times. Importantly, our method implicitly respects the directed nature of the data for directed graphs while also being applicable to undirected graphs. We apply the partitioning method for community detection to a large class of models and real-world data sets.