Connectivity in temporal graphs relies on the notion of temporal paths, in which edges follow a chronological order (either strict or non-strict). In this work, we investigate the question of how to make a temporal graph connected. More precisely, we tackle the problem Temporal Connectivity Augmentation (TCA) which consists of finding, among a set of proposed temporal edges, the smallest subset such that its addition makes the graph temporally connected. We study the complexity of this problem and variants, under restricted lifespan of the graph, i.e. the maximum time step in the graph. Our main result on TCA is that for any fixed lifespan at least 2, it is NP-complete in both the strict (paths follows a strict chronological order) and non-strict (paths follow a non-strict chronological order) setting. We additionally provide a set of restrictions in the non-strict setting which makes the problem solvable in polynomial time and design an algorithm achieving this complexity. Interestingly, we prove that the source variant (making a given vertex a source in the augmented graph) is as difficult as TCA. On the opposite, we prove that the version where a list of connectivity demands has to be satisfied is solvable in polynomial time, when the size of the list is fixed. Finally, we highlight a variant of the previous case for which even with two pairs the problem is already NP-hard.

Abstract. The dichromatic number [Formula: see text] of a digraph [Formula: see text] is the least integer [Formula: see text] such that [Formula: see text] can be partitioned into [Formula: see text] directed acyclic digraphs. A digraph is [Formula: see text]-dicritical if [Formula: see text] and each proper subgraph [Formula: see text] of [Formula: see text] satisfies [Formula: see text]. An oriented graph is a digraph with no directed cycle of length 2. For integers [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], we denote by [Formula: see text] the minimum number of edges of a [Formula: see text]-dicritical oriented graph on [Formula: see text] vertices. The main result of this paper is a proof that [Formula: see text] together with a construction witnessing that [Formula: see text] for all [Formula: see text]. We also give a construction showing that for all sufficiently large [Formula: see text] and all [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], disproving a conjecture of Hoshino and Kawarabayashi.

Abstract The notion offorbidden-transition graphsallows for a robust generalization of walks in graphs. In a forbidden-transition graph, every pair of edges incident to a common vertex ispermittedorforbidden; a walk iscompatibleif all pairs of consecutive edges on the walk are permitted. Forbidden-transition graphs and related models have found applications in a variety of fields, such as routing in optical telecommunication networks, road networks, and bio-informatics. A widely-studied special case are edge-colored graphs, where a compatible walk is forbidden to take two edges of the same color in a row. We initiate the study of fundamental problems on finding paths, cycles and walks in forbidden-transition graphs from the point of view of parameterized complexity, including an in-depth study of tractability with regards to various graph-width parameters. Among several results, we prove that finding a simple compatible path between given endpoints in a forbidden-transition graph isW[1]-hard when parameterized by the vertex-deletion distance to a linear forest (so it is also hard when parameterized by pathwidth or treewidth). On the other hand, we show an algebraic trick that yields tractability when parameterized by treewidth for finding a compatible Hamiltonian cycle in the edge-colored graph setting.

At IPEC 2020, Bergougnoux, Bonnet, Brettell, and Kwon (Close Relatives of Feedback Vertex Set Without Single-Exponential Algorithms Parameterized by Treewidth, IPEC 2020, LIPIcs vol. 180, pp. 3:1-3:17) showed that a number of problems related to the classic Feedback Vertex Set (FVS) problem do not admit a 2^{o(k log k)} ⋅ n^{𝒪(1)}-time algorithm on graphs of treewidth at most k, assuming the Exponential Time Hypothesis. This contrasts with the 3^{k} ⋅ k^{𝒪(1)} ⋅ n-time algorithm for FVS using the Cut&Count technique. During their live talk at IPEC 2020, Bergougnoux et al. posed a number of open questions, which we answer in this work. - Subset Even Cycle Transversal, Subset Odd Cycle Transversal, Subset Feedback Vertex Set can be solved in time 2^{𝒪(k log k)} ⋅ n in graphs of treewidth at most k. This matches a lower bound for Even Cycle Transversal of Bergougnoux et al. and improves the polynomial factor in some of their upper bounds. - Subset Feedback Vertex Set and Node Multiway Cut can be solved in time 2^{𝒪(k log k)} ⋅ n, if the input graph is given as a cliquewidth expression of size n and width k. - Odd Cycle Transversal can be solved in time 4^k ⋅ k^{𝒪(1)} ⋅ n if the input graph is given as a cliquewidth expression of size n and width k. Furthermore, the existence of a constant ε > 0 and an algorithm performing this task in time (4-ε)^k ⋅ n^{𝒪(1)} would contradict the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis. A common theme of the first two algorithmic results is to represent connectivity properties of the current graph in a state of a dynamic programming algorithm as an auxiliary forest with 𝒪(k) nodes. This results in a 2^{𝒪(k log k)} bound on the number of states for one node of the tree decomposition or cliquewidth expression and allows to compare two states in k^{𝒪(1)} time, resulting in linear time dependency on the size of the graph or the input cliquewidth expression.

The notion of forbidden-transition graphs allows for a robust generalization of walks in graphs. In a forbidden-transition graph, every pair of edges incident to a common vertex is permitted or forbidden; a walk is compatible if all pairs of consecutive edges on the walk are permitted. Forbidden-transition graphs and related models have found applications in a variety of fields, such as routing in optical telecommunication networks, road networks, and bio-informatics. We initiate the study of fundamental connectivity problems from the point of view of parameterized complexity, including an in-depth study of tractability with regards to various graph-width parameters. Among several results, we prove that finding a simple compatible path between given endpoints in a forbidden-transition graph is W[1]-hard when parameterized by the vertex-deletion distance to a linear forest (so it is also hard when parameterized by pathwidth or treewidth). On the other hand, we show an algebraic trick that yields tractability when parameterized by treewidth of finding a properly colored Hamiltonian cycle in an edge-colored graph; properly colored walks in edge-colored graphs is one of the most studied special cases of compatible walks in forbidden-transition graphs.