1 research outputs found
Exploration of graphs with excluded minors
We study the online graph exploration problem proposed by Kalyanasundaram and
Pruhs (1994) and prove a constant competitive ratio on minor-free graphs. This
result encompasses and significantly extends the graph classes that were
previously known to admit a constant competitive ratio. The main ingredient of
our proof is that we find a connection between the performance of the
particular exploration algorithm Blocking and the existence of light spanners.
Conversely, we exploit this connection to construct light spanners of bounded
genus graphs. In particular, we achieve a lightness that improves on the best
known upper bound for genus g>0 and recovers the known tight bound for the
planar case (g=0).Comment: to appear at ESA 202