Sandwich and probe problems for excluding paths

Abstract

The final publication is available at Elsevier via https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dam.2018.05.054 © 2018 This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Let Pk denote an induced path on k vertices. For k ≥ 5, we show that the Pk-free sandwich problem, partitioned probe problem, and unpartitioned probe problem are NP-complete. For k ≤ 4, it is known that the Pk-free sandwich problem, partitioned probe problem, and unpartitioned probe problem are in P.The first author was supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico CNPq Grant 303622/2011-3