2-Approximating Feedback Vertex Set in Tournaments

A tournament is a directed graph T such that every pair of vertices is connected by an arc. A feedback vertex set is a set S of vertices in T such that T − S is acyclic. We consider the Feedback Vertex Set problem in tournaments. Here, the input is a tournament T and a weight function w : V ( T ) → N, and the task is to find a feedback vertex set S in T minimizing w ( S ) = ∑ v∈S w ( v ). Rounding optimal solutions to the natural LP-relaxation of this problem yields a simple 3-approximation algorithm. This has been improved to 2.5 by Cai et al. [SICOMP 2000], and subsequently to 7/3 by Mnich et al. [ESA 2016]. In this article, we give the first polynomial time factor 2-approximation algorithm for this problem. Assuming the Unique Games Conjecture, this is the best possible approximation ratio achievable in polynomial time.

Tight Localizations of Feedback Sets

The classical NP–hard feedback arc set problem (FASP) and feedback vertex set problem (FVSP) ask for a minimum set of arcs ε ⊆ E or vertices ν ⊆ V whose removal G ∖ ε, G ∖ ν makes a given multi–digraph G =( V , E ) acyclic, respectively. Though both problems are known to be APX–hard, constant ratio approximations or proofs of inapproximability are unknown. We propose a new universal O (| V || E | 4 )–heuristic for the directed FASP. While a ratio of r ≈ 1.3606 is known to be a lower bound for the APX–hardness, at least by empirical validation we achieve an approximation of r ≤ 2. Most of the relevant applications, such as circuit testing , ask for solving the FASP on large sparse graphs, which can be done efficiently within tight error bounds with our approach.

On Structural Parameterizations of the Edge Disjoint Paths Problem

In this paper we revisit the classical edge disjoint paths (EDP) problem, where one is given an undirected graph G and a set of terminal pairs P and asks whether G contains a set of pairwise edge-disjoint paths connecting every terminal pair in P. Our focus lies on structural parameterizations for the problem that allow for efficient (polynomial-time or FPT) algorithms. As our first result, we answer an open question stated in Fleszar et al. (Proceedings of the ESA, 2016), by showing that the problem can be solved in polynomial time if the input graph has a feedback vertex set of size one. We also show that EDP parameterized by the treewidth and the maximum degree of the input graph is fixed-parameter tractable. Having developed two novel algorithms for EDP using structural restrictions on the input graph, we then turn our attention towards the augmented graph, i.e., the graph obtained from the input graph after adding one edge between every terminal pair. In constrast to the input graph, where EDP is known to remain -hard even for treewidth two, a result by Zhou et al. (Algorithmica 26(1):3--30, 2000) shows that EDP can be solved in non-uniform polynomial time if the augmented graph has constant treewidth; we note that the possible improvement of this result to an FPT-algorithm has remained open since then. We show that this is highly unlikely by establishing the [1]-hardness of the problem parameterized by the treewidth (and even feedback vertex set) of the augmented graph. Finally, we develop an FPT-algorithm for EDP by exploiting a novel structural parameter of the augmented graph.