An efficient algorithm for $\mathcal{F}$-subgraph-free Edge Deletion on graphs having a product structure

Abstract

Given a family $\mathcal{F}$ of graphs, a graph is \emph{$\mathcal{F}$-subgraph-free} if it has no subgraph isomorphic to a member of $\mathcal{F}$. We present a fixed-parameter linear-time algorithm that decides whether a planar graph can be made $\mathcal{F}$-subgraph-free by deleting at most $k$ vertices or $k$ edges, where the parameters are $k$, $\lvert \mathcal{F} \rvert$, and the maximum number of vertices in a member of $\mathcal{F}$. The running time of our algorithm is double-exponential in the parameters, which is faster than the algorithm obtained by applying the first-order model checking result for graphs of bounded twin-width. To obtain this result, we develop a unified framework for designing algorithms for this problem on graphs with a ``product structure.'' Using this framework, we also design algorithms for other graph classes that generalize planar graphs. Specifically, the problem admits a fixed-parameter linear time algorithm on disk graphs of bounded local radius, and a fixed-parameter almost-linear time algorithm on graphs of bounded genus. Finally, we show that our result gives a tight fixed-parameter algorithm in the following sense: Even when $\mathcal{F}$ consists of a single graph $F$ and the input is restricted to planar graphs, it is unlikely to drop any parameters $k$ and $\lvert V(F) \rvert$ while preserving fixed-parameter tractability, unless the Exponential-Time Hypothesis fails.