Given an oriented graph $D$, the inversion of a subset $X$ of vertices consists in reversing the orientation of all arcs with both endpoints in $X$. When the subset $X$ is of size $p$ (resp. at most $p$), this operation is called an $(=p)$-inversion (resp. $(\leq p)$-inversion). Then, an oriented graph is $(=p)$-invertible if it can be made acyclic by a sequence of $p$-inversions. We observe that, for $n=|V(D)|$, deciding whether $D$ is $(=n-1)$-invertible is equivalent to deciding whether $D$ is acyclically pushable, and thus NP-complete. In all other cases, when $p \neq n-1$, we construct a polynomial-time algorithm to decide $(=p)$-invertibility. We then consider the $(= p)$-inversion number, $\text{inv}^{= p}(D)$ (resp. $(\leq p)$-inversion number, $\text{inv}^{\leq p}(D)$), defined as the minimum number of $(=p)$-inversions (resp. $(\leq p)$-inversions) rendering $D$ acyclic. We show that every $(=p)$-invertible digraph $D$ satisfies $\text{inv}^{= p}(D) \leq |A(D)|$ for every integer $p\geq 2$. When $p$ is even, we bound $\text{inv}^{= p}$ by a (linear) function of the feedback arc set number, and rule out the existence of any bounding function for odd $p$. Finally, we study the complexity of deciding whether the $(= p)$-inversion number, or the $(\leq p)$-inversion number, of a given oriented graph is at most a given integer $k$. For any fixed positive integer $p \geq 2$, when $k$ is part of the input, we show that both problems are NP-hard even in tournaments. In general oriented graphs, we prove $W[1]$-hardness for both problems when parameterized by $p$, even for $k=1$. In contrast, we exhibit polynomial kernels in $p + k$ for both problems in tournaments.

Abstract. We give a short proof that for every apex-forest [Formula: see text] on at least two vertices, graphs excluding [Formula: see text] as a minor have layered pathwidth at most [Formula: see text]. This improves upon a result by Dujmović, Eppstein, Joret, Morin, and Wood (SIDMA, 2020). Our main tool is a structural result about graphs excluding a forest as a rooted minor, which is of independent interest. We develop similar tools for treedepth and treewidth. We discuss implications for Erdős-Pósa properties of rooted models of minors in graphs.

We study the growth rate of weak coloring numbers of graphs excluding a fixed graph as a minor. Van den Heuvel et al. (European J. of Combinatorics, 2017) showed that for a fixed graph X, the maximum r-th weak coloring number of X-minor-free graphs is polynomial in r. We determine this polynomial up to a factor of O (r log r ). Moreover, we tie the exponent of the polynomial to a structural property of X, namely, 2-treedepth. As a result, for a fixed graph X and an X-minor-free graph G, we show that wcolr(G ) = O (rtd(X )-1 log r ), which improves on the bound wcolr(G ) = O (rg(td(X ))) given by Dujmović et al. (SODA, 2024), where g is an exponential function. In the case of planar graphs of bounded treewidth, we show that the maximum r-th weak coloring number is in O (r2 log r ), which is best possible.

Abstract Given a positive integer d, the class d-DIR is defined as all those intersection graphs formed from a finite collection of line segments in $${\mathbb R}^2$$ R 2 having at most d slopes. Since each slope induces an interval graph, it easily follows for every G in d-DIR with clique number at most $$\omega $$ ω that the chromatic number $$\chi (G)$$ χ ( G ) of G is at most $$d\omega $$ d ω . We show for every even value of $$\omega $$ ω how to construct a graph in d-DIR that meets this bound exactly. This partially confirms a conjecture of Bhattacharya, Dvořák and Noorizadeh. Furthermore, we show that the $$\chi $$ χ -binding function of d-DIR is $$\omega \mapsto d\omega $$ ω ↦ d ω for $$\omega $$ ω even and $$\omega \mapsto d(\omega -1)+1$$ ω ↦ d ( ω - 1 ) + 1 for $$\omega $$ ω odd. This extends an earlier result by Kostochka and Nešetřil, which treated the special case $$d=2$$ d = 2 .

The k -shortest simple paths problem asks to compute a set of top- k shortest simple paths from a source to a sink in a graph G = ( V , E ) with | V | = n vertices and | E | = m edges. The most well-known algorithm for solving this problem is due to Yen (1971) with time complexity in O ( k n ( m + n log ⁡ n ) ) and the fastest algorithm is due to Gotthilf and Lewenstein (2009) with time complexity in O ( k n ( m + n log ⁡ log ⁡ n ) ) . For bounded treewidth graphs, Eppstein and Kurz (2017) lowered the computational complexity to O ( k n ) by retrieving paths from the k smallest solutions of a monadic second-order formula, and to O ( n + k log ⁡ ( n ) ) to retrieve the k shortest simple distances only. In this paper, we provide an algorithm that answers k -shortest simple distances in O ( k + n ) time on graphs with treewidth at most 2, and a constructive algorithm, simpler than that of Eppstein and Kurz, that solves the k -shortest simple paths problem in O ( k n ) time on bounded treewidth graphs.

We prove that for every planar graph X of treedepth h, there exists a positive integer c such that for every X-minor-free graph G, there exists a graph H of treewidth at most f (h) such that G is isomorphic to a subgraph of H ⊠ Kc. This is a qualitative strengthening of the Grid-Minor Theorem of Robertson and Seymour (JCTB, 1986), and treedepth is the optimal parameter in such a result. As an example application, we use this result to improve the upper bound for weak coloring numbers of graphs excluding a given graph as a minor.

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.

An instance I of the Stable Matching Problem (SMP) is given by a bipartite graph with a preference list of neighbors for every vertex. A swap in I is the exchange of two consecutive vertices in a preference list. A swap can be viewed as a smallest perturbation of I. Boehmer et al. (2021) designed a polynomial-time algorithm for finding the minimum number of swaps required to turn a given maximal matching into a stable matching. We generalize this result to the many-to-many version of SMP. We do so first by introducing a new representation of SMP as an extended bipartite graph and subsequently by reducing the problem to submodular minimization. It is a natural problem to establish the computational complexity of deciding whether at most k swaps are enough to turn I into an instance where one of the maximum matchings is stable. Using a hardness result of Gupta et al. (2020), we prove that this problem is NP-hard and, moreover, this problem parameterised by k is W[1]-hard. We also obtain a lower bound on the running time for solving the problem using the Exponential Time Hypothesis.

We study the problem Symmetric Directed Multicut from a parameterized complexity perspective. In this problem, the input is a digraph D, a set of cut requests C = {(s₁,t₁),…,(s_l,t_l)} and an integer k, and the task is to find a set X ⊆ V(D) of size at most k such that for every 1 ≤ i ≤ l, X intersects either all (s_i,t_i)-paths or all (t_i,s_i)-paths. Equivalently, every strongly connected component of D-X contains at most one vertex out of s_i and t_i for every i. This problem is previously known from research in approximation algorithms, where it is known to have an O(log k log log k)-approximation. We note that the problem, parameterized by k, directly generalizes multiple interesting FPT problems such as (Undirected) Vertex Multicut and Directed Subset Feedback Vertex Set. We are not able to settle the existence of an FPT algorithm parameterized purely by k, but we give three partial results: An FPT algorithm parameterized by k+l; an FPT-time 2-approximation parameterized by k; and an FPT algorithm parameterized by k for the special case that the cut requests form a clique, Symmetric Directed Multiway Cut. The existence of an FPT algorithm parameterized purely by k remains an intriguing open possibility.