Optimality program in segment and string graphs

Planar graphs are known to allow subexponential algorithms running in time $2^{O(\sqrt n)}$ or $2^{O(\sqrt n \log n)}$ for most of the paradigmatic problems, while the brute-force time $2^{\Theta(n)}$ is very likely to be asymptotically best on general graphs. Intrigued by an algorithm packing curves in $2^{O(n^{2/3}\log n)}$ by Fox and Pach [SODA'11], we investigate which problems have subexponential algorithms on the intersection graphs of curves (string graphs) or segments (segment intersection graphs) and which problems have no such algorithms under the ETH (Exponential Time Hypothesis). Among our results, we show that, quite surprisingly, 3-Coloring can also be solved in time $2^{O(n^{2/3}\log^{O(1)}n)}$ on string graphs while an algorithm running in time $2^{o(n)}$ for 4-Coloring even on axis-parallel segments (of unbounded length) would disprove the ETH. For 4-Coloring of unit segments, we show a weaker ETH lower bound of $2^{o(n^{2/3})}$ which exploits the celebrated Erd\H{o}s-Szekeres theorem. The subexponential running time also carries over to Min Feedback Vertex Set but not to Min Dominating Set and Min Independent Dominating Set.Comment: 19 pages, 15 figure

A 3-Approximation Algorithm for Maximum Independent Set of Rectangles

We study the Maximum Independent Set of Rectangles (MISR) problem, where we are given a set of axis-parallel rectangles in the plane and the goal is to select a subset of non-overlapping rectangles of maximum cardinality. In a recent breakthrough, Mitchell [2021] obtained the first constant-factor approximation algorithm for MISR. His algorithm achieves an approximation ratio of 10 and it is based on a dynamic program that intuitively recursively partitions the input plane into special polygons called corner-clipped rectangles, without intersecting certain special horizontal line segments called fences. In this paper, we present a 3-approximation algorithm for MISR which is based on a similar recursive partitioning scheme. First, we use a partition into a more general class of axis-parallel polygons with constant complexity each, which allows us to provide an arguably simpler analysis and at the same time already improves the approximation ratio to 6. Then, using a more elaborate charging scheme and a recursive partitioning into general axis-parallel polygons with constant complexity, we improve our approximation ratio to 3. In particular, our partitioning uses more general fences that can be sequences of up to O(1) line segments each. This and our other new ideas may be useful for future work towards a PTAS for MISR.Comment: 41 page

Approximation schemes for independent set and sparse subsets of polygons

We present a (1+ε)-approximation algorithm with quasi-polynomial running time for computing a maximum weight independent set of polygons from a given set of polygons in the plane. Contrasting this, the best-known polynomial time algorithm for the problem has an approximation ratio of nε. Surprisingly, we can extend the algorithm to the problem of computing the maximum cardinality subset of the given set of polygons whose intersection graph fulfills some sparsity condition. For example, we show that one can approximate the maximum subset of polygons such that the intersection graph of the subset is planar or does not contain a cycle of length 4 (i.e., K2,2). Our algorithm relies on a recursive partitioning scheme, whose backbone is the existence of balanced cuts with small complexity that intersect polygons from the optimal solution of a small total weight. For the case of large axis-parallel rectangles, we provide a polynomial time (1 + ε)-approximation for the maximum weight independent set. Specifically, we consider the problem where each rectangle has one edge whose length is at least a constant fraction of the length of the corresponding edge of the bounding box of all the input elements. This is now the most general case for which a PTAS is known, and it requires a new and involved partitioning scheme, which should be of independent interest