On approximating tree spanners that are breadth first search trees

Abstract

A tree $t$-spanner $T$ of a graph $G$ is a spanning tree of $G$ such that the distance in $T$ between every pair of verices is at most $t$ times the distance in $G$ between them. There are efficient algorithms that find a tree $t\cdot O(\log n)$-spanner of a graph $G$, when $G$ admits a tree $t$-spanner. In this paper, the search space is narrowed to $v$-concentrated spanning trees, a simple family that includes all the breadth first search trees starting from vertex $v$. In this case, it is not easy to find approximate tree spanners within factor almost $o(\log n)$. Specifically, let $m$ and $t$ be integers, such that $m>0$ and $t\geq 7$. If there is an efficient algorithm that receives as input a graph $G$ and a vertex $v$ and returns a $v$-concentrated tree $t\cdot o((\log n)^{m/(m+1)})$-spanner of $G$, when $G$ admits a $v$-concentrated tree $t$-spanner, then there is an algorithm that decides 3-SAT in quasi-polynomial time.