We investigate the problem of strong connectivity augmentation within plane oriented graphs. We show that deciding whether a plane oriented graph D can be augmented with (any number of) arcs X such that D+X is strongly connected, but still plane and oriented, is NP-hard. The hardness also holds for the planar variant. This question becomes trivial within plane (or planar) digraphs, like most connectivity augmentation problems without a budget constraint. The budgeted variant, Plane Strong Connectivity Augmentation (PSCA) considers a plane oriented graph D along with some integer k, and asks for an X of size at most k ensuring that D+X is strongly connected, while remaining plane and oriented. Our main result is a fixed-parameter tractable algorithm for PSCA, running in time 2^O(k) n² log n. The cornerstone of our procedure is a structural result showing that, for any fixed k, each face admits a bounded number of partial solutions "dominating" all others. Then, our algorithm for PSCA combines face-wise branching with a randomized reduction to the polynomial Minimum Dijoin problem, yielding a Monte-Carlo FPT algorithm, which we derandomize. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first FPT algorithm for a (hard) connectivity augmentation problem constrained by planarity.

In a directed graph D on vertex set v₁,… ,v_n, a forward arc is an arc v_iv_j where i < j. A pair v_i,v_j is forward connected if there is a directed path from v_i to v_j consisting of forward arcs. In the Forward Connected Pairs Problem (FCPP), the input is a strongly connected digraph D, and the output is the maximum number of forward connected pairs in some vertex enumeration of D. We show that FCPP is in APX, as one can efficiently enumerate the vertices of D in order to achieve a quadratic number of forward connected pairs. For this, we construct a linear size balanced bi-tree T (an out-branching and an in-branching with same size and same root which are vertex disjoint in the sense that they share no vertex apart from their common root). The existence of such a T was left as an open problem (Brunelli, Crescenzi, Viennot, Networks 2023) motivated by the study of temporal paths in temporal networks. More precisely, T can be constructed in quadratic time (in the number of vertices) and has size at least n/3. The algorithm involves a particular depth-first search tree (Left-DFS) of independent interest, and shows that every strongly connected directed graph has a balanced separator which is a circuit. Remarkably, in the request version RFCPP of FCPP, where the input is a strong digraph D and a set of requests R consisting of pairs {x_i,y_i}, there is no constant c > 0 such that one can always find an enumeration realizing c.|R| forward connected pairs {x_i,y_i} (in either direction).

We introduce a new kernelization tool, called rainbow matching technique, that is appropriate for the design of polynomial kernels for packing problems. Our technique capitalizes on the powerful combinatorial results of [Graf, Harris, Haxell, SODA 2021]. We apply the rainbow matching technique on two (di)graph packing problems, namely the TRIANGLE-PACKING IN TOURNAMENT problem (TPT), where we ask for a packing of k directed triangles in a tournament, and the INDUCED 2-PATH-PACKING (I2PP) where we ask for a packing of k induced paths of length two in a graph. The existence of a sub-quadratic kernels for these problems was proven for the first time in [Fomin, Le, Lokshtanov, Saurabh, Thomassé, Zehavi. ACM Trans. Algorithms, 2019], where they gave a kernel of

We study the complexity of deciding whether a given digraph D=(V,A) admits a partition (A1,A2) of its arc set such that each of the corresponding digraphs D1=(V,A1) and D2=(V,A2) satisfy some given prescribed property. We mainly focus on the following 15 properties: being bipartite, being connected, being strongly connected, being acyclic (spanning or not necessarily spanning), containing an in-branching, containing an out-branching, having some in-degree (or out-degree) conditions, satisfying some conditions on the number of arcs, being balanced (connected or not) or being a cycle. Combined with previous research, our work leads to a complete classification (in terms of being polynomial or NP-complete) of the complexity of 120 arc-partitioning problems on digraphs.

A knot in a directed graph G is a strongly connected subgraph Q of G with at least two vertices, such that no vertex in V(Q) is an in-neighbor of a vertex in V(G)\V(Q). Knots are important graph structures, because they characterize the existence of deadlocks in a classical distributed computation model, the so-called OR-model. Deadlock detection is correlated with the recognition of knot-free graphs as well as deadlock resolution is closely related to the Knot-Free Vertex Deletion (KFVD) problem, which consists of determining whether an input graph G has a subset S subseteq V(G) of size at most k such that G[V\S] contains no knot. Because of natural applications in deadlock resolution, KFVD is closely related to Directed Feedback Vertex Set. In this paper we focus on graph width measure parameterizations for KFVD. First, we show that: (i) KFVD parameterized by the size of the solution k is W[1]-hard even when p, the length of a longest directed path of the input graph, as well as kappa, its Kenny-width, are bounded by constants, and we remark that KFVD is para-NP-hard even considering many directed width measures as parameters, but in FPT when parameterized by clique-width; (ii) KFVD can be solved in time 2^{O(tw)} x n, but assuming ETH it cannot be solved in 2^{o(tw)} x n^{O(1)}, where tw is the treewidth of the underlying undirected graph. Finally, since the size of a minimum directed feedback vertex set (dfv) is an upper bound for the size of a minimum knot-free vertex deletion set, we investigate parameterization by dfv and we show that (iii) KFVD can be solved in FPT-time parameterized by either dfv+kappa or dfv+p. Results of (iii) cannot be improved when replacing dfv by k due to (i).

A tournament is a directed graph in which there is a single arc between every pair of distinct vertices. Given a tournament T on n vertices, we explore the classical and parameterized complexity of the problems of determining if T has a cycle packing (a set of pairwise arc-disjoint cycles) of size k and a triangle packing (a set of pairwise arc-disjoint triangles) of size k. We refer to these problems as Arc-disjoint Cycles in Tournaments (ACT) and Arc-disjoint Triangles in Tournaments (ATT), respectively. Although the maximization version of ACT can be seen as the linear programming dual of the well-studied problem of finding a minimum feedback arc set (a set of arcs whose deletion results in an acyclic graph) in tournaments, surprisingly no algorithmic results seem to exist for ACT. We first show that ACT and ATT are both NP-complete. Then, we show that the problem of determining if a tournament has a cycle packing and a feedback arc set of the same size is NP-complete. Next, we prove that ACT and ATT are fixed-parameter tractable, they can be solved in 2^{O(k log k)} n^{O(1)} time and 2^{O(k)} n^{O(1)} time respectively. Moreover, they both admit a kernel with O(k) vertices. We also prove that ACT and ATT cannot be solved in 2^{o(sqrt{k})} n^{O(1)} time under the Exponential-Time Hypothesis.

Kanté and Nourine [ SIAM J. Discrete Math., 30 (2016), pp. 311--326] present a polynomial time algorithm for the computation of the hull number of chordal graphs. We point out a gap in the correctness proof of their algorithm for chordal graphs and show that computing the hull number of a chordal graph is NP-hard, which most likely rules out the existence of a polynomial time algorithm.

Given a tournament T and a positive integer k, the C_3-Packing-T asks if there exists a least k (vertex-)disjoint directed 3-cycles in T. This is the dual problem in tournaments of the classical minimal feedback vertex set problem. Surprisingly C_3-Packing-T did not receive a lot of attention in the literature. We show that it does not admit a PTAS unless P=NP, even if we restrict the considered instances to sparse tournaments, that is tournaments with a feedback arc set (FAS) being a matching. Focusing on sparse tournaments we provide a (1+6/(c-1)) approximation algorithm for sparse tournaments having a linear representation where all the backward arcs have "length" at least c. Concerning kernelization, we show that C_3-Packing-T admits a kernel with O(m) vertices, where m is the size of a given feedback arc set. In particular, we derive a O(k) vertices kernel for C_3-Packing-T when restricted to sparse instances. On the negative size, we show that C_3-Packing-T does not admit a kernel of (total bit) size O(k^{2-epsilon}) unless NP is a subset of coNP / Poly. The existence of a kernel in O(k) vertices for C_3-Packing-T remains an open question.

Maňuch and Stacho (Theoret Inform Appl 37 (2003), 255–270) introduced the problem of designing f-tolerant routings in optical networks, i.e. routings which still satisfy the given requests even if f failures occur in the network. In this article, we provide f-tolerant routings in complete and complete balanced bipartite optical networks, optimal according to two parameters: the arc-forwarding index and the optical index. These constructions use tools from design theory and graph theory and improve previous results of Dinitz et al. (Networks 48 (2006), 47–54) for the complete network, and Gupta et al. (J Combin Design 14 (2006), 25–40) for the complete balanced bipartite network. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. NETWORKS, 2010

A tournament $T = (V,A)$ is a directed graph in which there is exactly one arc between every pair of distinct vertices. Given a digraph on $n$ vertices and an integer parameter $k$, the {\sc Feedback Arc Set} problem asks whether thegiven digraph has a set of $k$ arcs whose removal results in an acyclicdigraph. The {\sc Feedback Arc Set} problem restricted to tournaments is knownas the {\sc $k$-Feedback Arc Set in Tournaments ($k$-FAST)} problem. In thispaper we obtain a linear vertex kernel for \FAST{}. That is, we give apolynomial time algorithm which given an input instance $T$ to \FAST{} obtains an equivalent instance $T'$ on $O(k)$ vertices. In fact, given any fixed $\epsilon > 0$, the kernelized instance has at most $(2 + \epsilon)k$ vertices.Our result improves the previous known bound of $O(k^2)$ on the kernel size for\FAST{}. Our kernelization algorithm solves the problem on a subclass of tournaments in polynomial time and uses a known polynomial time approximation scheme for \FAST.