Feldmann, A.E. orcid.org/0000-0001-6229-5332 and Marx, D. (2016) The complexity landscape of fixed-parameter directed steiner network problems. In: Chatzigiannakis, I., Mitzenmacher, M., Rabani, Y. and Sangiorgi, D., (eds.) Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics, LIPIcs. 43rd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2016), 12-15 Jul 2016, Rome, Italy. Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics, 55 . Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik , Dagstuhl, Germany , 27:1-27:14. ISBN 978-3-95977-013-2
Abstract
Given a directed graph G and a list (s1, t1), . . . , (sk, tk) of terminal pairs, the Directed Steiner Network problem asks for a minimum-cost subgraph of G that contains a directed si → ti path for every 1 ≤ i ≤ k. The special case Directed Steiner Tree (when we ask for paths from a root r to terminals t1, . . . , tk) is known to be fixed-parameter tractable parameterized by the number of terminals, while the special case Strongly Connected Steiner Subgraph (when we ask for a path from every ti to every other tj) is known to be W[1]-hard parameterized by the number of terminals. We systematically explore the complexity landscape of directed Steiner problems to fully understand which other special cases are FPT or W[1]-hard. Formally, if H is a class of directed graphs, then we look at the special case of Directed Steiner Network where the list (s1, t1), . . . , (sk, tk) of requests form a directed graph that is a member of H. Our main result is a complete characterization of the classes H resulting in fixed-parameter tractable special cases: we show that if every pattern in H has the combinatorial property of being "transitively equivalent to a bounded-length caterpillar with a bounded number of extra edges," then the problem is FPT, and it is W[1]-hard for every recursively enumerable H not having this property. This complete dichotomy unifies and generalizes the known results showing that Directed Steiner Tree is FPT [Dreyfus and Wagner, Networks 1971], Strongly Connected Steiner Subgraph is W[1]-hard [Guo et al., SIAM J. Discrete Math. 2011], and Directed Steiner Network is solvable in polynomial-time for constant number of terminals [Feldman and Ruhl, SIAM J. Comput. 2006], and moreover reveals a large continent of tractable cases that were not known before.
Metadata
Item Type: | Proceedings Paper |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Editors: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016 The authors. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Directed Steiner Tree; Directed Steiner Network; fixed-parameter tractability; dichotomy |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Computer Science (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 28 Jun 2023 15:23 |
Last Modified: | 28 Jun 2023 15:23 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik |
Series Name: | Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2016.27 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:200964 |