A message-passing algorithm for counting short cycles in a graph

This paper presents a distributed message-passing algorithm for counting short cycles in a graph. For bipartite graphs, which are of particular interest in coding, the algorithm is capable of counting cycles of length g; g+2; ... ; 2g-2, where g is the girth of the graph. For a general (non-bipartite) graph, cycles of length g; g+1; ... ; 2g-1 can be counted. The algorithm is based on performing integer additions and subtractions in the nodes of the graph and passing extrinsic messages to adjacent nodes. The complexity of the proposed algorithm grows as O(g|E|²), where |E| is the number of edges in the graph. For sparse graphs, the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms the existing algorithms in terms of computational complexity and memory requirements.