Algorithmic Properties of Sparse Digraphs

The notions of bounded expansion [Nesetril and Ossona de Mendez, 2008] and nowhere denseness [Nesetril and Ossona de Mendez, 2011], introduced by Nesetril and Ossona de Mendez as structural measures for undirected graphs, have been applied very successfully in algorithmic graph theory. We study the corresponding notions of directed bounded expansion and nowhere crownfulness on directed graphs, introduced by Kreutzer and Tazari [Kreutzer and Tazari, 2012]. The classes of directed graphs having those properties are very general classes of sparse directed graphs, as they include, on one hand, all classes of directed graphs whose underlying undirected class has bounded expansion, such as planar, bounded-genus, and H-minor-free graphs, and on the other hand, they also contain classes whose underlying undirected class is not even nowhere dense. We show that many of the algorithmic tools that were developed for undirected bounded expansion classes can, with some care, also be applied in their directed counterparts, and thereby we highlight a rich algorithmic structure theory of directed bounded expansion and nowhere crownful classes

Digraph Complexity Measures and Applications in Formal Language Theory

We investigate structural complexity measures on digraphs, in particular the cycle rank. This concept is intimately related to a classical topic in formal language theory, namely the star height of regular languages. We explore this connection, and obtain several new algorithmic insights regarding both cycle rank and star height. Among other results, we show that computing the cycle rank is NP-complete, even for sparse digraphs of maximum outdegree 2. Notwithstanding, we provide both a polynomial-time approximation algorithm and an exponential-time exact algorithm for this problem. The former algorithm yields an O((log n)^(3/2))- approximation in polynomial time, whereas the latter yields the optimum solution, and runs in time and space O*(1.9129^n) on digraphs of maximum outdegree at most two. Regarding the star height problem, we identify a subclass of the regular languages for which we can precisely determine the computational complexity of the star height problem. Namely, the star height problem for bideterministic languages is NP-complete, and this holds already for binary alphabets. Then we translate the algorithmic results concerning cycle rank to the bideterministic star height problem, thus giving a polynomial-time approximation as well as a reasonably fast exact exponential algorithm for bideterministic star height.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figur

Hamilton decompositions of regular expanders: applications

In a recent paper, we showed that every sufficiently large regular digraph G on n vertices whose degree is linear in n and which is a robust outexpander has a decomposition into edge-disjoint Hamilton cycles. The main consequence of this theorem is that every regular tournament on n vertices can be decomposed into (n-1)/2 edge-disjoint Hamilton cycles, whenever n is sufficiently large. This verified a conjecture of Kelly from 1968. In this paper, we derive a number of further consequences of our result on robust outexpanders, the main ones are the following: (i) an undirected analogue of our result on robust outexpanders; (ii) best possible bounds on the size of an optimal packing of edge-disjoint Hamilton cycles in a graph of minimum degree d for a large range of values for d. (iii) a similar result for digraphs of given minimum semidegree; (iv) an approximate version of a conjecture of Nash-Williams on Hamilton decompositions of dense regular graphs; (v) the observation that dense quasi-random graphs are robust outexpanders; (vi) a verification of the `very dense' case of a conjecture of Frieze and Krivelevich on packing edge-disjoint Hamilton cycles in random graphs; (vii) a proof of a conjecture of Erdos on the size of an optimal packing of edge-disjoint Hamilton cycles in a random tournament.Comment: final version, to appear in J. Combinatorial Theory

Approximate Hamilton decompositions of robustly expanding regular digraphs

We show that every sufficiently large r-regular digraph G which has linear degree and is a robust outexpander has an approximate decomposition into edge-disjoint Hamilton cycles, i.e. G contains a set of r-o(r) edge-disjoint Hamilton cycles. Here G is a robust outexpander if for every set S which is not too small and not too large, the `robust' outneighbourhood of S is a little larger than S. This generalises a result of K\"uhn, Osthus and Treglown on approximate Hamilton decompositions of dense regular oriented graphs. It also generalises a result of Frieze and Krivelevich on approximate Hamilton decompositions of quasirandom (di)graphs. In turn, our result is used as a tool by K\"uhn and Osthus to prove that any sufficiently large r-regular digraph G which has linear degree and is a robust outexpander even has a Hamilton decomposition.Comment: Final version, published in SIAM Journal Discrete Mathematics. 44 pages, 2 figure

Beyond Bidimensionality: Parameterized Subexponential Algorithms on Directed Graphs

We develop two different methods to achieve subexponential time parameterized algorithms for problems on sparse directed graphs. We exemplify our approaches with two well studied problems. For the first problem, {\sc $k$-Leaf Out-Branching}, which is to find an oriented spanning tree with at least $k$ leaves, we obtain an algorithm solving the problem in time $2^{O(\sqrt{k} \log k)} n+ n^{O(1)}$ on directed graphs whose underlying undirected graph excludes some fixed graph $H$ as a minor. For the special case when the input directed graph is planar, the running time can be improved to $2^{O(\sqrt{k})}n + n^{O(1)}$. The second example is a generalization of the {\sc Directed Hamiltonian Path} problem, namely {\sc $k$-Internal Out-Branching}, which is to find an oriented spanning tree with at least $k$ internal vertices. We obtain an algorithm solving the problem in time $2^{O(\sqrt{k} \log k)} + n^{O(1)}$ on directed graphs whose underlying undirected graph excludes some fixed apex graph $H$ as a minor. Finally, we observe that for any $\epsilon>0$, the {\sc $k$-Directed Path} problem is solvable in time $O((1+\epsilon)^k n^{f(\epsilon)})$, where $f$ is some function of \ve. Our methods are based on non-trivial combinations of obstruction theorems for undirected graphs, kernelization, problem specific combinatorial structures and a layering technique similar to the one employed by Baker to obtain PTAS for planar graphs