Counting Shortest Two Disjoint Paths in Cubic Planar Graphs with an NC Algorithm

Given an undirected graph and two disjoint vertex pairs $s_1,t_1$ and $s_2,t_2$, the Shortest two disjoint paths problem (S2DP) asks for the minimum total length of two vertex disjoint paths connecting $s_1$ with $t_1$, and $s_2$ with $t_2$, respectively. We show that for cubic planar graphs there are NC algorithms, uniform circuits of polynomial size and polylogarithmic depth, that compute the S2DP and moreover also output the number of such minimum length path pairs. Previously, to the best of our knowledge, no deterministic polynomial time algorithm was known for S2DP in cubic planar graphs with arbitrary placement of the terminals. In contrast, the randomized polynomial time algorithm by Bj\"orklund and Husfeldt, ICALP 2014, for general graphs is much slower, is serial in nature, and cannot count the solutions. Our results are built on an approach by Hirai and Namba, Algorithmica 2017, for a generalisation of S2DP, and fast algorithms for counting perfect matchings in planar graphs

A Structural Theorem For Shortest Vertex-Disjoint Paths Computation in Planar Graphs

Given k terminal pairs (s₁,t₁),(s₂,t₂),..., (s[subscript k],t[subscript k]) in an edge-weighted graph G, the k Shortest Vertex-Disjoint Paths problem is to find a collection P₁, P₂,..., P[subscript k] of vertex-disjoint paths with minimum total length, where P[subscript i] is an s[subscript i]-to-t[subscript i] path. As a special case of the multi-commodity flow problem, computing vertex disjoint paths has found several applications, for example in VLSI design, or network routing. In this thesis we describe a Structural Theorem for a special case of the Shortest Vertex-Disjoint Paths problem in undirected planar graphs where the terminal vertices are on the boundary of the outer face. At a high level, our Structural Theorem guarantees that the i[superscript th] path of the k Shortest Vertex-Disjoint paths does not cross j[superscript th] (j ≠ i) path of the k-1 Vertex-Disjoint Paths problem

Shortest k-Disjoint Paths via Determinants

The well-known $k$-disjoint path problem ($k$-DPP) asks for pairwise vertex-disjoint paths between $k$ specified pairs of vertices $(s_i, t_i)$ in a given graph, if they exist. The decision version of the shortest $k$-DPP asks for the length of the shortest (in terms of total length) such paths. Similarly the search and counting versions ask for one such and the number of such shortest set of paths, respectively. We restrict attention to the shortest $k$-DPP instances on undirected planar graphs where all sources and sinks lie on a single face or on a pair of faces. We provide efficient sequential and parallel algorithms for the search versions of the problem answering one of the main open questions raised by Colin de Verdiere and Schrijver for the general one-face problem. We do so by providing a randomised $NC^2$ algorithm along with an $O(n^{\omega})$ time randomised sequential algorithm. We also obtain deterministic algorithms with similar resource bounds for the counting and search versions. In contrast, previously, only the sequential complexity of decision and search versions of the "well-ordered" case has been studied. For the one-face case, sequential versions of our routines have better running times for constantly many terminals. In addition, the earlier best known sequential algorithms (e.g. Borradaile et al.) were randomised while ours are also deterministic. The algorithms are based on a bijection between a shortest $k$-tuple of disjoint paths in the given graph and cycle covers in a related digraph. This allows us to non-trivially modify established techniques relating counting cycle covers to the determinant. We further need to do a controlled inclusion-exclusion to produce a polynomial sum of determinants such that all "bad" cycle covers cancel out in the sum allowing us to count "good" cycle covers.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figure

Walking Through Waypoints

We initiate the study of a fundamental combinatorial problem: Given a capacitated graph $G=(V,E)$, find a shortest walk ("route") from a source $s\in V$ to a destination $t\in V$ that includes all vertices specified by a set $\mathscr{W}\subseteq V$: the \emph{waypoints}. This waypoint routing problem finds immediate applications in the context of modern networked distributed systems. Our main contribution is an exact polynomial-time algorithm for graphs of bounded treewidth. We also show that if the number of waypoints is logarithmically bounded, exact polynomial-time algorithms exist even for general graphs. Our two algorithms provide an almost complete characterization of what can be solved exactly in polynomial-time: we show that more general problems (e.g., on grid graphs of maximum degree 3, with slightly more waypoints) are computationally intractable