Arc-disjoint out- and in-branchings in compositions of digraphs

An out-branching $B^+_u$ (in-branching $B^-_u$) in a digraph $D$ is a connected spanning subdigraph of $D$ in which every vertex except the vertex $u$, called the root, has in-degree (out-degree) one. A {\bf good $\mathbf{(u,v)}$-pair} in $D$ is a pair of branchings $B^+_u,B^-_v$ which have no arc in common. Thomassen proved that is NP-complete to decide if a digraph has any good pair. A digraph is {\bf semicomplete} if it has no pair of non adjacent vertices. A {\bf semicomplete composition} is any digraph $D$ which is obtained from a semicomplete digraph $S$ by substituting an arbitrary digraph $H_x$ for each vertex $x$ of $S$. Recently the authors of this paper gave a complete classification of semicomplete digraphs which have a good $(u,v)$-pair, where $u,v$ are prescribed vertices of $D$. They also gave a polynomial algorithm which for a given semicomplete digraph $D$ and vertices $u,v$ of $D$, either produces a good $(u,v)$-pair in $D$ or a certificate that $D$ has such pair. In this paper we show how to use the result for semicomplete digraphs to completely solve the problem of deciding whether a given semicomplete composition $D$, has a good $(u,v)$-pair for given vertices $u,v$ of $D$. Our solution implies that the problem is polynomially solvable for all semicomplete compositions. In particular our result implies that there is a polynomial algorithm for deciding whether a given quasi-transitive digraph $D$ has a good $(u,v)$-pair for given vertices $u,v$ of $D$. This confirms a conjecture of Bang-Jensen and Gutin from 1998

Strong arc decompositions of split digraphs

A {\bf strong arc decomposition} of a digraph $D=(V,A)$ is a partition of its arc set $A$ into two sets $A_1,A_2$ such that the digraph $D_i=(V,A_i)$ is strong for $i=1,2$. Bang-Jensen and Yeo (2004) conjectured that there is some $K$ such that every $K$-arc-strong digraph has a strong arc decomposition. They also proved that with one exception on 4 vertices every 2-arc-strong semicomplete digraph has a strong arc decomposition. Bang-Jensen and Huang (2010) extended this result to locally semicomplete digraphs by proving that every 2-arc-strong locally semicomplete digraph which is not the square of an even cycle has a strong arc decomposition. This implies that every 3-arc-strong locally semicomplete digraph has a strong arc decomposition. A {\bf split digraph} is a digraph whose underlying undirected graph is a split graph, meaning that its vertices can be partioned into a clique and an independent set. Equivalently, a split digraph is any digraph which can be obtained from a semicomplete digraph $D=(V,A)$ by adding a new set $V'$ of vertices and some arcs between $V'$ and $V$. In this paper we prove that every 3-arc-strong split digraph has a strong arc decomposition which can be found in polynomial time and we provide infinite classes of 2-strong split digraphs with no strong arc decomposition. We also pose a number of open problems on split digraphs

Out-degree reducing partitions of digraphs

Let $k$ be a fixed integer. We determine the complexity of finding a $p$-partition $(V_1, \dots, V_p)$ of the vertex set of a given digraph such that the maximum out-degree of each of the digraphs induced by $V_i$, ($1\leq i\leq p$) is at least $k$ smaller than the maximum out-degree of $D$. We show that this problem is polynomial-time solvable when $p\geq 2k$ and ${\cal NP}$-complete otherwise. The result for $k=1$ and $p=2$ answers a question posed in \cite{bangTCS636}. We also determine, for all fixed non-negative integers $k_1,k_2,p$, the complexity of deciding whether a given digraph of maximum out-degree $p$ has a $2$-partition $(V_1,V_2)$ such that the digraph induced by $V_i$ has maximum out-degree at most $k_i$ for $i\in [2]$. It follows from this characterization that the problem of deciding whether a digraph has a 2-partition $(V_1,V_2)$ such that each vertex $v\in V_i$ has at least as many neighbours in the set $V_{3-i}$ as in $V_i$, for $i=1,2$ is ${\cal NP}$-complete. This solves a problem from \cite{kreutzerEJC24} on majority colourings.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figur

The complexity of finding arc-disjoint branching flows

The concept of arc-disjoint flows in networks was recently introduced in \cite{bangTCSflow}. This is a very general framework within which many well-known and important problems can be formulated. In particular, the existence of arc-disjoint branching flows, that is, flows which send one unit of flow from a given source $s$ to all other vertices, generalizes the concept of arc-disjoint out-branchings (spanning out-trees) in a digraph. A pair of out-branchings $B_{s,1}^+,B_{s,2}^+$ from a root $s$ in a digraph $D=(V,A)$ on $n$ vertices corresponds to arc-disjoint branching flows $x_1,x_2$ (the arcs carrying flow in $x_i$ are those used in $B_{s,i}^+$, $i=1,2$) in the network that we obtain from $D$ by giving all arcs capacity $n-1$.It is then a natural question to ask how much we can lower the capacities on the arcs and still have, say, two arc-disjoint branching flows from the given root $s$.We prove that for every fixed integer $k \geq 2$ it is\begin{itemize}\item an NP-complete problem to decide whether a network ${\cal N}=(V,A,u)$ where $u_{ij}=k$ for every arc $ij$ has two arc-disjoint branching flows rooted at $s$.\item a polynomial problem to decide whether a network ${\cal N}=(V,A,u)$ on $n$ vertices and $u_{ij}=n-k$ for every arc $ij$ has two arc-disjoint branching flows rooted at $s$.\end{itemize}The algorithm for the later result generalizes the polynomial algorithm, due to Lov\'asz, for deciding whether a given input digraph has two arc-disjoint out-branchings rooted at a given vertex.Finally we prove that under the so-called Exponential Time Hypothesis (ETH), for every $\epsilon{}>0$ and for every $k(n)$ with $(\log{}(n))^{1+\epsilon}\leq k(n)\leq \frac{n}{2}$ (and for every large $i$ we have $k(n)=i$ for some $n$) there is no polynomial algorithm for deciding whether a given digraph contains twoarc-disjoint branching flows from the same root so that no arc carries flow larger than $n-k(n)$

Arc-disjoint Strong Spanning Subdigraphs of Semicomplete Compositions

A strong arc decomposition of a digraph $D=(V,A)$ is a decomposition of its arc set $A$ into two disjoint subsets $A_1$ and $A_2$ such that both of the spanning subdigraphs $D_1=(V,A_1)$ and $D_2=(V,A_2)$ are strong. Let $T$ be a digraph with $t$ vertices $u_1,\dots , u_t$ and let $H_1,\dots H_t$ be digraphs such that $H_i$ has vertices $u_{i,j_i},\ 1\le j_i\le n_i.$ Then the composition $Q=T[H_1,\dots , H_t]$ is a digraph with vertex set $\cup_{i=1}^t V(H_i)=\{u_{i,j_i}\mid 1\le i\le t, 1\le j_i\le n_i\}$ and arc set $$\left(\cup^t_{i=1}A(H_i) \right) \cup \left( \cup_{u_iu_p\in A(T)} \{u_{ij_i}u_{pq_p} \mid 1\le j_i\le n_i, 1\le q_p\le n_p\} \right).$$ We obtain a characterization of digraph compositions $Q=T[H_1,\dots H_t]$ which have a strong arc decomposition when $T$ is a semicomplete digraph and each $H_i$ is an arbitrary digraph. Our characterization generalizes a characterization by Bang-Jensen and Yeo (2003) of semicomplete digraphs with a strong arc decomposition and solves an open problem by Sun, Gutin and Ai (2018) on strong arc decompositions of digraph compositions $Q=T[H_1,\dots , H_t]$ in which $T$ is semicomplete and each $H_i$ is arbitrary. Our proofs are constructive and imply the existence of a polynomial algorithm for constructing a \good{} decomposition of a digraph $Q=T[H_1,\dots , H_t]$, with $T$ semicomplete, whenever such a decomposition exists

Tournaments and Semicomplete Digraphs.

International audienc