We study two "above guarantee" versions of the classical Longest Path problem on undirected and directed graphs and obtain the following results. In the first variant of Longest Path that we study, called Longest Detour, the task is to decide whether a graph has an (s,t)-path of length at least dist_G(s,t)+k (where dist_G(s,t) denotes the length of a shortest path from s to t). Bezáková et al. proved that on undirected graphs the problem is fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) by providing an algorithm of running time 2^{O (k)} n. Further, they left the parameterized complexity of the problem on directed graphs open. Our first main result establishes a connection between Longest Detour on directed graphs and 3-Disjoint Paths on directed graphs. Using these new insights, we design a 2^{O(k)} n^{O(1)} time algorithm for the problem on directed planar graphs. Further, the new approach yields a significantly faster FPT algorithm on undirected graphs.
In the second variant of Longest Path, namely Longest Path Above Diameter, the task is to decide whether the graph has a path of length at least diam(G)+k (diam(G) denotes the length of a longest shortest path in a graph G). We obtain dichotomy results about Longest Path Above Diameter on undirected and directed graphs. For (un)directed graphs, Longest Path Above Diameter is NP-complete even for k=1. However, if the input undirected graph is 2-connected, then the problem is FPT. On the other hand, for 2-connected directed graphs, we show that Longest Path Above Diameter is solvable in polynomial time for each k\in{1,\dots, 4} and is NP-complete for every k\geq 5. The parameterized complexity of Longest Path Above Diameter on general directed graphs remains an interesting open problem.
We study an "above guarantee" version of the {\sc Longest Path} problem in directed graphs: We are given a graph $G$, two vertices $s$ and $t$ of $G$, and a non-negative integer $k$, and the objective is to determine whether $G$ contains a path of length at least $dist_G(s,t) +k$ where $dist_G(s,t)$ is the length of a shortest path from $s$ to $t$ in $G$ (assuming that one exists). We show that the problem is fixed parameter tractable (FPT) parameterized by $k$ in the class of graphs where {\sc $2$-Disjoint Paths} problem is polynomial time solvable.
We consider the following natural "above guarantee" parameterization of the classical Longest Path problem: For given vertices s and t of a graph G, and an integer k, the problem Longest Detour asks for an (s,t)-path in G that is at least k longer than a shortest (s,t)-path. Using insights into structural graph theory, we prove that Longest Detour is fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) on undirected graphs and actually even admits a single-exponential algorithm, that is, one of running time exp(O(k)) poly(n). This matches (up to the base of the exponential) the best algorithms for finding a path o…
Motivated by the well known four-thirds conjecture for the traveling salesman problem (TSP), we study the problem of {\em uniform covers}. A graph $G=(V,E)$ has an $α$-uniform cover for TSP (2EC, respectively) if the everywhere $α$ vector (i.e. $\{α\}^{E}$) dominates a convex combination of incidence vectors of tours (2-edge-connected spanning multigraphs, respectively). The polyhedral analysis of Christofides' algorithm directly implies that a 3-edge-connected, cubic graph has a 1-uniform cover for TSP. Sebő asked if such graphs have $(1-ε)$-uniform covers for TSP for some $ε> 0$. Indeed, the…
I extend the methods in "Electrical Flows, Laplacian Systems, and Faster Approximation of Maximum Flow in Undirected Graphs, with Paul Christiano, Jonathan Kelner, Daniel Spielman, and Shang-Hua Teng" to directed graphs with a variation of the framework in the paper, which lead to an algorithm that approximately solves the directed max flow problem in nearly-linear time.
Motion planning is a fundamental problem of robotics with applications in many areas of computer science and beyond. Its restriction to graphs has been investigated in the literature for it allows to concentrate on the combinatorial problem abstracting from geometric considerations. In this paper, we consider motion planning over directed graphs, which are of interest for asymmetric communication networks. Directed graphs generalize undirected graphs, while introducing a new source of complexity to the motion planning problem: moves are not reversible. We first consider the class of acyclic di…
In this paper we introduce the linear clique-width, linear NLC-width, neighbourhood-width, and linear rank-width for directed graphs. We compare these parameters with each other as well as with the previously defined parameters directed path-width and directed cut-width. It turns out that the parameters directed linear clique-width, directed linear NLC-width, directed neighbourhood-width, and directed linear rank-width are equivalent in that sense, that all of these parameters can be upper bounded by each of the others. For the restriction to digraphs of bounded vertex degree directed path-wid…
In this paper we consider the directed path-width and directed tree-width of recursively defined digraphs. As an important combinatorial tool, we show how the directed path-width and the directed tree-width can be computed for the disjoint union, order composition, directed union, and series composition of two directed graphs. These results imply the equality of directed path-width and directed tree-width for all digraphs which can be defined by these four operations. This allows us to show a linear-time solution for computing the directed path-width and directed tree-width of all these digrap…
We introduce the concept of shallow directed minors and based on this a new classification of classes of directed graphs which is diametric to existing directed graph decompositions and width measures proposed in the literature. We then study in depth one type of classes of directed graphs which we call nowhere crownful. The classes are very general as they include, on one hand, all classes of directed graphs whose underlying undirected class is nowhere dense, such as planar, bounded-genus, and $H$-minor-free graphs; and on the other hand, also contain classes of high edge density whose underl…
Recent spectral graph sparsification research allows constructing nearly-linear-sized subgraphs that can well preserve the spectral (structural) properties of the original graph, such as the first few eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the graph Laplacian, leading to the development of a variety of nearly-linear time numerical and graph algorithms. However, there is not a unified approach that allows for truly-scalable spectral sparsification of both directed and undirected graphs. In this work, we prove the existence of linear-sized spectral sparsifiers for general directed graphs and introduce …
We give O(log^2 n)-approximation algorithm based on the cut-matching framework of [10, 13, 14] for computing the sparsest cut on directed graphs. Our algorithm uses only O(log^2 n) single commodity max-flow computations and thus breaks the multicommodity-flow barrier for computing the sparsest cut on directed graphs
In some applications of matching, the structural or hierarchical properties of the two graphs being aligned must be maintained. The hierarchical properties are induced by the direction of the edges in the two directed graphs. These structural relationships defined by the hierarchy in the graphs act as a constraint on the alignment. In this paper, we formalize the above problem as the weighted alignment between two directed acyclic graphs. We prove that this problem is NP-complete, show several upper bounds for approximating the solution, and finally introduce polynomial time algorithms for sub…
Wu and Grumbach introduced the concept of strongly biconnected directed graphs. A directed graph $G=(V,E)$ is called strongly biconnected if the directed graph $G$ is strongly connected and the underlying undirected graph of $G$ is biconnected. A strongly biconnected directed graph $G=(V,E)$ is said to be $2$- edge strongly biconnected if it has at least three vertices and the directed subgraph $(V,E\setminus\left\lbrace e\right\rbrace )$ is strongly biconnected for all $e \in E$. Let $G=(V,E)$ be a $2$-edge-strongly biconnected directed graph. In this paper we study the problem of computing a…
The problem of routing in graphs using node-disjoint paths has received a lot of attention and a polylogarithmic approximation algorithm with constant congestion is known for undirected graphs [Chuzhoy and Li 2016] and [Chekuri and Ene 2013]. However, the problem is hard to approximate within polynomial factors on directed graphs, for any constant congestion [Chuzhoy, Kim and Li 2016]. Recently, [Chekuri, Ene and Pilipczuk 2016] have obtained a polylogarithmic approximation with constant congestion on directed planar graphs, for the special case of symmetric demands. We extend their result by …
The multi-commodity flow-cut gap is a fundamental parameter that affects the performance of several divide \& conquer algorithms, and has been extensively studied for various classes of undirected graphs. It has been shown by Linial, London and Rabinovich and by Aumann and Rabani that for general $n$-vertex graphs it is bounded by $O(\log n)$ and the Gupta-Newman-Rabinovich-Sinclair conjecture asserts that it is $O(1)$ for any family of graphs that excludes some fixed minor. We show that the multicommodity flow-cut gap on \emph{directed} planar graphs is $O(\log^3 n)$. This is the first \emph{…
We consider approximations for computing minimum weighted cuts in directed graphs. We consider both rooted and global minimum cuts, and both edge-cuts and vertex-cuts. For these problems we give randomized Monte Carlo algorithms that compute a $(1+ε)$-approximate minimum cut in $\tilde{O}(n^2 / ε^2)$ time. These results extend and build on recent work [4] that obtained exact algorithms with similar running times in directed graphs with small integer capacities.
We give an $O(n \log \log n)$ time algorithm for computing the minimum cut (or equivalently, the shortest cycle) of a weighted directed planar graph. This improves the previous fastest $O(n\log^3 n)$ solution. Interestingly, while in undirected planar graphs both min-cut and min $st$-cut have $O(n \log \log n)$ solutions, in directed planar graphs our result makes min-cut faster than min $st$-cut, which currently requires $O(n \log n)$.
We study the problem of constructing synthetic graphs that resemble real-world directed graphs in terms of their degree correlations. We define the problem of directed 2K construction (D2K) that takes as input the directed degree sequence (DDS) and a joint degree and attribute matrix (JDAM) so as to capture degree correlation specifically in directed graphs. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions to decide whether a target D2K is realizable, and we design an efficient algorithm that creates realizations with that target D2K. We evaluate our algorithm in creating synthetic graphs that t…
We derive Cheeger inequalities for directed graphs and hypergraphs using the reweighted eigenvalue approach that was recently developed for vertex expansion in undirected graphs [OZ22,KLT22,JPV22]. The goal is to develop a new spectral theory for directed graphs and an alternative spectral theory for hypergraphs. The first main result is a Cheeger inequality relating the vertex expansion $\vecψ(G)$ of a directed graph $G$ to the vertex-capacitated maximum reweighted second eigenvalue $\vecλ_2^{v*}$: \[ \vecλ_2^{v*} \lesssim \vecψ(G) \lesssim \sqrt{\vecλ_2^{v*} \cdot \log (Δ/\vecλ_2^{v*})}. \] …
We give polynomial-time algorithms for obtaining hamilton circuits in random graphs, G, and random directed graphs, D. If n is finite, we assume that G or D contains a hamilton circuit. If G is an arbitrary graph containing a hamilton circuit, we conjecture that Algorithm G always obtains a hamilton circuit in polynomial time.
Lifion by ADP（ADP旗下Lifion）；University of Illinois at Chicago（芝加哥伊利诺伊大学）
In this paper, we consider the problem of reconstructing a directed graph using path queries. In this query model of learning, a graph is hidden from the learner, and the learner can access information about it with path queries. For a source and destination node, a path query returns whether there is a directed path from the source to the destination node in the hidden graph. In this paper we first give bounds for learning graphs on $n$ vertices and $k$ strongly connected components. We then study the case of bounded degree directed trees and give new algorithms for learning "almost-trees" --…
