Odd Cycle Transversal on $P_5$-free Graphs in Polynomial Time

Akanksha Agrawal; Paloma T. Lima; Daniel Lokshtanov; Pawel Rzążewski; Saket Saurabh; Roohani Sharma

Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2402.11465

Odd Cycle Transversal on $P_5$-free Graphs in Polynomial Time

Akanksha Agrawal·Paloma T. Lima·Daniel Lokshtanov·Pawel Rzążewski·Saket Saurabh·Roohani Sharma

View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

An independent set in a graph G is a set of pairwise non-adjacent vertices. A graph $G$ is bipartite if its vertex set can be partitioned into two independent sets. In the Odd Cycle Transversal problem, the input is a graph $G$ along with a weight function $w$ associating a rational weight with each vertex, and the task is to find a smallest weight vertex subset $S$ in $G$ such that $G - S$ is bipartite; the weight of $S$, $w(S) = \sum_{v\in S} w(v)$. We show that Odd Cycle Transversal is polynomial-time solvable on graphs excluding $P_5$ (a path on five vertices) as an induced subgraph. The problem was previously known to be polynomial-time solvable on $P_4$-free graphs and NP-hard on $P_6$-free graphs [Dabrowski, Feghali, Johnson, Paesani, Paulusma and Rz\k{a}\.zewski, Algorithmica 2020]. Bonamy, Dabrowski, Feghali, Johnson and Paulusma [Algorithmica 2019] posed the existence of a polynomial-time algorithm on $P_5$-free graphs as an open problem, this was later re-stated by Rz\k{a}\.zewski [Dagstuhl Reports, 9(6): 2019] and by Chudnovsky, King, Pilipczuk, Rz\k{a}\.zewski, and Spirkl [SIDMA 2021], who gave an algorithm with running time $n^{O(\sqrt{n})}$.

Explore related subjects

cs.DS

Keep this discovery

BibTeX RIS

Akanksha Agrawal, Paloma T. Lima, Daniel Lokshtanov, Pawel Rzążewski, Saket Saurabh, Roohani Sharma. 2024-02-18. Odd Cycle Transversal on $P_5$-free Graphs in Polynomial Time. https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.11465

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Quasi-Monte Carlo Beyond Hardy-Krause II: $(1 + \varepsilon)n$ Samples Suffice

Numerical integration studies how well one can estimate the integral of a function $f$ over $[0,1)^d$ using $n$ sample points. The two classical methods, Monte Carlo (MC) and quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC), have complementary strengths and weaknesses, and a fundamental question is to design an approach that combines the benefits of both. Recently, building on the transference principle in discrepancy theory, Bansal and Jiang~\cite{BJ25a} gave a randomized QMC method that bridges MC and QMC guarantees using only i.i.d.\ samples. Their method also goes beyond the classical Koksma--Hlawka inequality: it achieves integration error $\widetilde{O}_d(\sigma_{\mathsf{SO}}(f)/n)$, where the smoothed-out variation $\sigma_{\mathsf{SO}}(f)$ can be substantially smaller than the Hardy--Krause variation that governs the classical bound. However, their algorithm requires $n^2$ i.i.d.\ samples as input, and this quadratic blowup is inherent to any method based on the transference principle. In this work, we bypass the quadratic blowup: for any constant $\varepsilon > 0$, we show that $(1+\varepsilon)n$ i.i.d.\ samples suffice to both obtain the beyond-Hardy--Krause guarantee of~\cite{BJ25a}, resolving an open problem posed there, and to produce low-discrepancy point sequences. Our algorithms are variants of the online Haar-thinning method of Dwivedi, Feldheim, Gurel-Gurevich, and Ramdas~\cite{DFG+19}.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2026

A deterministic $(1+\varepsilon)^n$ approximation for the permanent of a nonnegative matrix

For every fixed $0<\varepsilon\le1$, we give a deterministic strongly polynomial algorithm that, given a nonnegative matrix $A\in\mathbb{R}_{\ge0}^{n\times n}$, returns $Q$ satisfying $\operatorname{per} A\le Q\le(1+\varepsilon)^n\operatorname{per} A$.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2026

Single-Exponential Algorithms and a Polynomial Kernel for Strong Connectivity Augmentation

Strong Connectivity Augmentation (SCA) asks whether a directed acyclic graph can be made strongly connected by adding at most $k$ prescribed links whose total weight is within a given budget. Klinkby, Misra, and Saurabh (SODA 2021) gave an $O^*(2^{O(k\log k)})$-time algorithm and asked whether the problem admits a single-exponential parameterized algorithm and a polynomial kernel. We answer both questions affirmatively: SCA can be solved in $O^*(9^k)$ time and admits a polynomial kernel with $O(k^4)$ vertices and $O(k^{16})$ bits. For unweighted SCA, we obtain $O^*(4^k)$ time and a kernel with $O(k^3)$ vertices. Our algorithms are based on a particularly simple reduction to Strongly Connected Spanning Subgraph with two edge costs.

cs.DS↗