Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Florian Hörsch

Publications and source records attributed to Florian Hörsch.

31 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
arXiv2023

Steiner connectivity problems in hypergraphs

We say that a tree $T$ is an $S$-Steiner tree if $S \subseteq V(T)$ and a hypergraph is an $S$-Steiner hypertree if it can be trimmed to an $S$-Steiner tree. We prove that it is NP-complete to decide, given a hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$ and some $S \subseteq V(\mathcal{H})$, whether there is a subhypergraph of $\mathcal{H}$ which is an $S$-Steiner hypertree. As corollaries, we give two negative results for two Steiner orientation problems in hypergraphs. Firstly, we show that it is NP-complete to decide, given a hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$, some $r \in V(\mathcal{H})$ and some $S \subseteq V(\mathcal{H})$, whether this hypergraph has an orientation in which every vertex of $S$ is reachable from $r$. Secondly, we show that it is NP-complete to decide, given a hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$ and some $S \subseteq V(\mathcal{H})$, whether this hypergraph has an orientation in which any two vertices in $S$ are mutually reachable from each other. This answers a longstanding open question of the Egerváry Research group. We further show that it is NP-complete to decide if a given hypergraph has a well-balanced orientation. On the positive side, we show that the problem of finding a Steiner hypertree and the first orientation problem can be solved in polynomial time if the number of terminals $|S|$ is fixed.

math.CO↗
arXiv2023

Complexity of (arc)-connectivity problems involving arc-reversals or deorientations

By a well known theorem of Robbins, a graph $G$ has a strongly connected orientation if and only if $G$ is 2-edge-connected and it is easy to find, in linear time, either a cut edge of $G$ or a strong orientation of $G$. A result of Durand de Gevigny shows that for every $k\geq 3$ it is NP-hard to decide if a given graph $G$ has a $k$-strong orientation. Thomassen showed that one can check in polynomial time whether a given graph has a 2-strong orientation. This implies that for a given digraph $D$ we can determine in polynomial time whether we can reorient (=reverse) some arcs of $D=(V,A)$ to obtain a 2-strong digraph $D'=(V,A')$. This naturally leads to the question of determining the minimum number of such arcs to reverse before the resulting graph is 2-strong. In this paper we show that finding this number is NP-hard. If a 2-connected graph $G$ has no 2-strong orientation, we may ask how many of its edges we may orient so that the resulting mixed graph is still 2-strong. Similarly, we may ask for a 2-edge-connected graph $G$ how many of its edges we can orient such that the resulting mixed graph remains 2-arc-strong. We prove that when restricted to graphs satisfying suitable connectivity conditions, both of these problems are equivalent to finding the minimum number of edges we must double in a 2-edge-connected graph in order to obtain a 4-edge-connected graph. Using this, we show that all these three problems are NP-hard. Finally, we consider the operation of deorienting an arc $uv$ of a digraph $D$ meaning replacing it by an undirected edge between the same vertices. In terms of connectivity properties, this is equivalent to adding the opposite arc $vu$ to $D$. We prove that for every $\ell\geq 3$ it is NP-hard to find the minimum number of arcs to deorient in a digraph $D$ in order to obtain an $\ell$-strong digraph $D'$.

math.CO↗
arXiv2023

Decompositions into two linear forests of bounded lengths

For some $k \in \mathbb{Z}_{\geq 0}\cup \infty$, we call a linear forest $k$-bounded if each of its components has at most $k$ edges. We will say a $(k,\ell)$-bounded linear forest decomposition of a graph $G$ is a partition of $E(G)$ into the edge sets of two linear forests $F_k,F_\ell$ where $F_k$ is $k$-bounded and $F_\ell$ is $\ell$-bounded. We show that the problem of deciding whether a given graph has such a decomposition is NP-complete if both $k$ and $\ell$ are at least $2$, NP-complete if $k\geq 9$ and $\ell =1$, and is in P for $(k,\ell)=(2,1)$. Before this, the only known NP-complete cases were the $(2,2)$ and $(3,3)$ cases. Our hardness result answers a question of Bermond et al. from 1984. We also show that planar graphs of girth at least nine decompose into a linear forest and a matching, which in particular is stronger than $3$-edge-colouring such graphs.

math.CO↗
arXiv2022

Problems, proofs, and disproofs on the inversion number

The {\it inversion} of a set $X$ of vertices in a digraph $D$ consists in reversing the direction of all arcs of $D\langle X\rangle$. The {\it inversion number} of an oriented graph $D$, denoted by ${\rm inv}(D)$, is the minimum number of inversions needed to transform $D$ into an acyclic oriented graph. In this paper, we study a number of problems involving the inversion number of oriented graphs. Firstly, we give bounds on ${\rm inv}(n)$, the maximum of the inversion numbers of the oriented graphs of order $n$. We show $n - \mathcal{O}(\sqrt{n\log n}) \ \leq \ {\rm inv}(n) \ \leq \ n - \lceil \log (n+1) \rceil$. Secondly, we disprove a conjecture of Bang-Jensen et al. asserting that, for every pair of oriented graphs $L$ and $R$, we have ${\rm inv}(L\Rightarrow R) ={\rm inv}(L) + {\rm inv}(R)$, where $L\Rightarrow R$ is the oriented graph obtained from the disjoint union of $L$ and $R$ by adding all arcs from $L$ to $R$. Finally, we investigate whether, for all pairs of positive integers $k_1,k_2$, there exists an integer $f(k_1,k_2)$ such that if $D$ is an oriented graph with ${\rm inv}(D) \geq f(k_1,k_2)$ then there is a partition $(V_1, V_2)$ of $V(D)$ such that ${\rm inv}(D\langle V_i\rangle) \geq k_i$ for $i=1,2$. We show that $f(1,k)$ exists and $f(1,k)\leq k+10$ for all positive integers $k$. Further, we show that $f(k_1,k_2)$ exists for all pairs of positive integers $k_1,k_2$ when the oriented graphs in consideration are restricted to be tournaments.

math.CO↗
arXiv2022

On the complexity of finding well-balanced orientations with upper bounds on the out-degrees

We show that the problem of deciding whether a given graph $G$ has a well-balanced orientation $\vec{G}$ such that $d_{\vec{G}}^+(v)\leq \ell(v)$ for all $v \in V(G)$ for a given function $\ell:V(G)\rightarrow \mathbb{Z}_{\geq 0}$ is NP-complete. We also prove a similar result for best-balanced orientations. This improves a result of Bern\' ath, Iwata, Kir\' aly, Király and Szigeti and answers a question of Frank.

math.CO↗
arXiv2022

Globally balancing spanning trees

We show that for every graph $G$ that contains two edge-disjoint spanning trees, we can choose two edge-disjoint spanning trees $T_1,T_2$ of $G$ such that $|d_{T_1}(v)-d_{T_2}(v)|\leq 5$ for all $v \in V(G)$. We also prove the more general statement that for every positive integer $k$, there is a constant $c_k \in O(\log k)$ such that for every graph $G$ that contains $k$ edge-disjoint spanning trees, we can choose $k$ edge-disjoint spanning trees $T_1,\ldots,T_k$ of $G$ satisfying $|d_{T_i}(v)-d_{T_j}(v)|\leq c_k$ for all $v \in V(G)$ and $i,j \in \{1,\ldots,k\}$. This resolves a conjecture of Kriesell.

math.CO↗
arXiv2022

Reachability in arborescence packings

Fortier et al. proposed several research problems on packing arborescences. Some of them were settled in that article and others were solved later by Matsuoka and Tanigawa and by Gao and Yang. The last open problem is settled in this article. We show how to turn an inductive idea used in the latter two articles into a simple proof technique that allows to relate previous results on arborescence packings. We show how a strong version of Edmonds' theorem on packing spanning arborescences implies Kamiyama, Katoh and Takizawa's result on packing reachability arborescences and how Durand de Gevigney, Nguyen and Szigeti's theorem on matroid-based packing of arborescences implies Király's result on matroid-reachability-based packing of arborescences. Finally, we deduce a new result on matroid-reachability-based packing of mixed hyperarborescences from a theorem on matroid-based packing of mixed hyperarborescences due to Fortier et al.. In the last part of the article, we deal with the algorithmic aspects of the problems considered. We first obtain algorithms to find the desired packings of arborescences in all settings and then apply Edmonds' weighted matroid intersection algorithm to also find solutions minimizing a given weight function.

math.CO↗
arXiv2022

Checking the admissibility of odd-vertex pairings is hard

Nash-Williams proved that every graph has a well-balanced orientation. A key ingredient in his proof is admissible odd-vertex pairings. We show that for two slightly different definitions of admissible odd-vertex pairings, deciding whether a given odd-vertex pairing is admissible is co-NP-complete. This resolves a question of Frank. We also show that deciding whether a given graph has an orientation that satisfies arbitrary local arc-connectivity requirements is NP-complete.

math.CO↗
arXiv2021

A note on 2-vertex-connected orientations

We consider two possible extensions of a theorem of Thomassen characterizing the graphs admitting a 2-vertex-connected orientation. First, we show that the problem of deciding whether a mixed graph has a 2-vertex-connected orientation is NP-hard. This answers a question of Bang-Jensen, Huang and Zhu. For the second part, we call a directed graph $D=(V,A)$ $2T$-connected for some $T \subseteq V$ if $D$ is 2-arc-connected and $D-v$ is strongly connected for all $v \in T$. We deduce a characterization of the graphs admitting a $2T$-connected orientation from the theorem of Thomassen.

math.CO↗
arXiv2021

FPT algorithms for packing $k$-safe spanning rooted sub(di)graphs

We study three problems introduced by Bang-Jensen and Yeo [Theor. Comput. Sci. 2015] and by Bang-Jensen, Havet, and Yeo [Discret. Appl. Math. 2016] about finding disjoint "balanced" spanning rooted substructures in graphs and digraphs, which generalize classic packing problems. Namely, given a positive integer $k$, a digraph $D=(V,A)$, and a root $r \in V$, we consider the problem of finding two arc-disjoint $k$-safe spanning $r$-arborescences and the problem of finding two arc-disjoint $(r,k)$-flow branchings. We show that both these problems are FPT with parameter $k$, improving on existing XP algorithms. The latter of these results answers a question of Bang-Jensen, Havet, and Yeo [Discret. Appl. Math. 2016]. Further, given an integer $k$, a graph $G=(V,E)$, and $r \in V$, we consider the problem of finding two arc-disjoint $(r,k)$-safe spanning trees. We show that this problem is also FPT with parameter $k$, again improving on a previous XP algorithm. Our main technical contribution is to prove that the existence of such spanning substructures is equivalent to the existence of substructures with size and maximum (out-)degree both bounded by a (linear or quadratic) function of $k$, which may be of independent interest.

cs.DS↗
arXiv2020

Packing of mixed hyperarborescences with flexible roots via matroid intersection

Given a mixed hypergraph $\mathcal{F}=(V,\mathcal{A}\cup \mathcal{E})$, functions $f,g:V\rightarrow \mathbb{Z}_+$ and an integer $k$, a packing of $k$ spanning mixed hyperarborescences is called $(k,f,g)$-flexible if every $v \in V$ is the root of at least $f(v)$ and at most $g(v)$ of the mixed hyperarborescences. We give a characterization of the mixed hypergraphs admitting such packings. This generalizes results of Frank and, more recently, Gao and Yang. Our approach is based on matroid intersection, generalizing a construction of Edmonds. We also obtain an algorithm for finding a minimum weight solution to the above mentioned problem.

math.CO↗
arXiv2020

Connectivity of orientations of 3-edge-connected graphs

We attempt to generalize a theorem of Nash-Williams stating that a graph has a $k$-arc-connected orientation if and only if it is $2k$-edge-connected. In a strongly connected digraph we call an arc {\it deletable} if its deletion leaves a strongly connected digraph. Given a $3$-edge-connected graph $G$, we define its Frank number $f(G)$ to be the minimum number $k$ such that there exist $k$ orientations of $G$ with the property that every edge becomes a deletable arc in at least one of these orientations. We are interested in finding a good upper bound for the Frank number. We prove that $f(G)\leq 7$ for every $3$-edge-connected graph. On the other hand, we show that a Frank number of $3$ is attained by the Petersen graph. Further, we prove better upper bounds for more restricted classes of graphs and establish a connection to the Berge-Fulkerson conjecture. We also show that deciding whether all edges of a given subset can become deletable in one orientation is NP-complete.

math.CO↗