On the Expressive Power of Implicit Line-Graph Higher-Order Weisfeiler--Leman
Abstract
Whitney's theorem allows isomorphism testing for connected simple graphs, apart from and , to be formulated as distinguishing their line graphs. However, the relation between fixed-dimensional Weisfeiler--Leman (WL) expressivity on line graphs and on their roots remains unresolved. We study this relation through Implicit Line-Graph WL (ILG--WL), which is exactly -WL on , executed over the edges of with line-graph relations derived from endpoint incidence and without explicitly constructing . On the Whitney-general class, the relation between root-domain and line-graph WL depends on . For , ILG--WL adds no distinguishing power beyond root-domain -WL and misses some pairs that -WL separates. For , we prove the backward containment . Strongly regular witness pairs, including the Shrikhande/rook pair, show that ILG--WL is strictly more expressive than -WL. The backward containment also extends to disconnected graphs with no isolated vertices when every connected component is Whitney-general. Deterministic ILG--WL separates all three substructure-counting witness pairs, all pairs in SR25, and of BREC pairs. An untrained dense ILG--GNN gives the same pairwise verdicts on these evaluations.