Computing Minimum Rainbow and Strong Rainbow Colorings of Block Graphs

A path in an edge-colored graph $G$ is rainbow if no two edges of it are colored the same. The graph $G$ is rainbow-connected if there is a rainbow path between every pair of vertices. If there is a rainbow shortest path between every pair of vertices, the graph $G$ is strongly rainbow-connected. The minimum number of colors needed to make $G$ rainbow-connected is known as the rainbow connection number of $G$, and is denoted by $\text{rc}(G)$. Similarly, the minimum number of colors needed to make $G$ strongly rainbow-connected is known as the strong rainbow connection number of $G$, and is denoted by $\text{src}(G)$. We prove that for every $k \geq 3$, deciding whether $\text{src}(G) \leq k$ is NP-complete for split graphs, which form a subclass of chordal graphs. Furthermore, there exists no polynomial-time algorithm for approximating the strong rainbow connection number of an $n$-vertex split graph with a factor of $n^{1/2-\epsilon}$ for any $\epsilon > 0$ unless P = NP. We then turn our attention to block graphs, which also form a subclass of chordal graphs. We determine the strong rainbow connection number of block graphs, and show it can be computed in linear time. Finally, we provide a polynomial-time characterization of bridgeless block graphs with rainbow connection number at most 4.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure

Algorithms and Bounds for Very Strong Rainbow Coloring

A well-studied coloring problem is to assign colors to the edges of a graph $G$ so that, for every pair of vertices, all edges of at least one shortest path between them receive different colors. The minimum number of colors necessary in such a coloring is the strong rainbow connection number (\src(G)) of the graph. When proving upper bounds on \src(G), it is natural to prove that a coloring exists where, for \emph{every} shortest path between every pair of vertices in the graph, all edges of the path receive different colors. Therefore, we introduce and formally define this more restricted edge coloring number, which we call \emph{very strong rainbow connection number} (\vsrc(G)). In this paper, we give upper bounds on \vsrc(G) for several graph classes, some of which are tight. These immediately imply new upper bounds on \src(G) for these classes, showing that the study of \vsrc(G) enables meaningful progress on bounding \src(G). Then we study the complexity of the problem to compute \vsrc(G), particularly for graphs of bounded treewidth, and show this is an interesting problem in its own right. We prove that \vsrc(G) can be computed in polynomial time on cactus graphs; in contrast, this question is still open for \src(G). We also observe that deciding whether \vsrc(G) = k is fixed-parameter tractable in $k$ and the treewidth of $G$. Finally, on general graphs, we prove that there is no polynomial-time algorithm to decide whether \vsrc(G) \leq 3 nor to approximate \vsrc(G) within a factor $n^{1-\varepsilon}$, unless P$=$NP

Chasing the Rainbow Connection: Hardness, Algorithms, and Bounds

We study rainbow connectivity of graphs from the algorithmic and graph-theoretic points of view. The study is divided into three parts. First, we study the complexity of deciding whether a given edge-colored graph is rainbow-connected. That is, we seek to verify whether the graph has a path on which no color repeats between each pair of its vertices. We obtain a comprehensive map of the hardness landscape of the problem. While the problem is NP-complete in general, we identify several structural properties that render the problem tractable. At the same time, we strengthen the known NP-completeness results for the problem. We pinpoint various parameters for which the problem is fixed-parameter tractable, including dichotomy results for popular width parameters, such as treewidth and pathwidth. The study extends to variants of the problem that consider vertex-colored graphs and/or rainbow shortest paths. We also consider upper and lower bounds for exact parameterized algorithms. In particular, we show that when parameterized by the number of colors k, the existence of a rainbow s-t path can be decided in O∗ (2k ) time and polynomial space. For the highly related problem of finding a path on which all the k colors appear, i.e., a colorful path, we explain the modest progress over the last twenty years. Namely, we prove that the existence of an algorithm for finding a colorful path in (2 − ε)k nO(1) time for some ε > 0 disproves the so-called Set Cover Conjecture.Second, we focus on the problem of finding a rainbow coloring. The minimum number of colors for which a graph G is rainbow-connected is known as its rainbow connection number, denoted by rc(G). Likewise, the minimum number of colors required to establish a rainbow shortest path between each pair of vertices in G is known as its strong rainbow connection number, denoted by src(G). We give new hardness results for computing rc(G) and src(G), including their vertex variants. The hardness results exclude polynomial-time algorithms for restricted graph classes and also fast exact exponential-time algorithms (under reasonable complexity assumptions). For positive results, we show that rainbow coloring is tractable for e.g., graphs of bounded treewidth. In addition, we give positive parameterized results for certain variants and relaxations of the problems in which the goal is to save k colors from a trivial upper bound, or to rainbow connect only a certain number of vertex pairs.Third, we take a more graph-theoretic view on rainbow coloring. We observe upper bounds on the rainbow connection numbers in terms of other well-known graph parameters. Furthermore, despite the interest, there have been few results on the strong rainbow connection number of a graph. We give improved bounds and determine exactly the rainbow and strong rainbow connection numbers for some subclasses of chordal graphs. Finally, we pose open problems and conjectures arising from our work