Extending Undirected Graph Techniques to Directed Graphs via Category Theory

Abstract

We use Category Theory to construct a ‘bridge’ relating directed graphs with undirected graphs, such that the notion of direction is preserved. Specifically, we provide an isomorphism between the category of simple directed graphs and a category we call ‘prime graphs category’; this has as objects labeled undirected bipartite graphs (which we call prime graphs), and as morphisms undirected graph morphisms that preserve the labeling (which we call prime graph morphisms). This theoretical bridge allows us to extend undirected graph techniques to directed graphs by converting the directed graphs into prime graphs. To give a proof of concept, we show that our construction preserves topological features when applied to the problems of network alignment and spectral graph clustering.

Keywords

• undirected graphs
• directed graphs
• spectral clustering
• network alignment
• category theory