Tangled up in Blue (A Survey on Connectivity, Decompositions, and Tangles)

Abstract

We survey an abstract theory of connectivity, based on symmetric submodular set functions. We start by developing Robertson and Seymour's fundamental duality between branch decompositions (related to the better-known tree decompositions) and so-called tangles, which may be viewed as highly connected regions in a connectivity system. We move on to studying canonical decompositions of connectivity systems into their maximal tangles. Last, but not least, we will discuss algorithmic aspect of the theory.