arXiv subjects

O-joung Kwon

Publications and source records attributed to O-joung Kwon.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Erdős-Pósa property for induced packings of long $S$-cycles

The Erdős-Pósa theorem states that for every integer $k\geq1$, every graph contains either $k$ vertex-disjoint cycles or a set of $\mathcal{O}(k\log k)$ vertices meeting all cycles. This fundamental min-max duality has been extended to numerous settings, including long cycles, $S$-cycles, that is, cycles containing a vertex in a prescribed set $S$, and cycles satisfying various additional constraints. In contrast, much less is known when the packing itself is required to be induced, namely, when distinct cycles are vertex-disjoint and have no edges between them. We prove that long $S$-cycles admit an induced version of the Erdős-Pósa-type duality. More precisely, we show that there exists a polynomial function $f(k,\ell)$ such that for all integers $k\geq1$ and $\ell\geq3$, every graph contains either an induced packing of $k$ $S$-cycles of length at least $\ell$ or a set of at most $f(k,\ell)$ vertices whose closed neighbourhood intersects all $S$-cycles of length at least $\ell$. The proof introduces a new ear-decomposition technique based on fragile ears and yields a polynomial-time algorithm for every fixed $\ell$.

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arXiv2026

Pre-assignment problem for unique minimum vertex cover on bounded clique-width graphs

Horiyama et al. (AAAI 2024) considered the problem of generating instances with a unique minimum vertex cover under certain conditions. The Minimum Pre-assignment for Uniquification of Minimum Vertex Cover problem (shortly Min PAU-VC) is the problem, for given a graph $G$, to find a minimum set $S$ of vertices in $G$ such that among all minimum vertex covers of $G$, exactly one contains $S$. We show that Min PAU-VC is fixed-parameter tractable parameterized by clique-width, which improves an exponential algorithm for trees given by Horiyama et al. Among natural graph classes with unbounded clique-width, we show that the problem can be solved in linear time on split graphs and unit interval graphs.

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arXiv2026

An FPT algorithm for cycle rank on semi-complete digraphs

Cycle rank is a depth parameter for digraphs introduced by Eggan in 1963. Gruber (DMTCS 2012) and Giannopoulou, Hunter, and Thilikos (DAM 2012) asked whether the problem of determining if a given digraph has cycle rank at most $w$ is fixed-parameter tractable parameterized by $w$. We provide such algorithms for semi-complete digraphs, and for digraphs of bounded directed clique-width. Specifically, we show that given an $n$-vertex semi-complete digraph $G$ and an integer $w$, one can in time $\mathcal{O}(9^{(w+1)4^{w+2}} \cdot n^2)$ determine whether $G$ has cycle rank at most $w$. The proof is reduced to the case of bounded directed clique-width, and we then show that given an $n$-vertex digraph $G$ with a directed clique-width $k$-expression and an integer $w$, one can in time $\mathcal{O}(9^{(w+1) 4^k} \cdot n)$ determine whether $G$ has cycle rank at most $w$. Additionally, we consider the \textsc{Minimum Feedback Arc Set} problem on semi-complete digraphs, and show that it can be solved in time $n^{\mathcal{O}(w)}$, where $w$ is the cycle rank of the given semi-complete digraph.

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arXiv2026

Moderately beyond clique-width: reduced component max-leaf and related parameters

Reduced parameters [BKW, JCTB '26; BKRT, SODA '22] are defined via contraction sequences. Based on this framework, we introduce the reduced component max-leaf, denoted by $\operatorname{cml}^\downarrow$, where component max-leaf is the maximum number of leaves in any spanning tree of any connected component. Reduced component max-leaf is strictly sandwiched between clique-width and reduced bandwidth, it is bounded in unit interval graphs, and unbounded in planar graphs. We design polynomial-time algorithms for problems such as \textsc{Maximum Induced $d$-Regular Subgraph} and \textsc{Induced Disjoint Paths} in graphs given with a contraction sequence witnessing low $\operatorname{cml}^\downarrow$, unifying and extending tractability results for classes of bounded clique-width and unit interval graphs. We get the following collapses in sparse classes of bounded $\operatorname{cml}^\downarrow$: bounded maximum degree implies bounded treewidth, whereas $K_{t,t}$-subgraph-freeness implies strongly sublinear treewidth; we show the latter, more generally, for classes of bounded reduced cutwidth. We establish the former result by showing that graphs with bounded $\operatorname{cml}^\downarrow$ admit balanced separators dominated by a bounded number of vertices. We then showcase an application of the reduced parameters to establishing non-transducibility results. We prove that for most reduced parameters $p^\downarrow$ (including reduced bandwidth), the family of classes of bounded $p^\downarrow$ is closed under first-order transductions. We then answer a question of [BKW '26] by showing that the 3-dimensional grids have unbounded reduced bandwidth. As the class of planar graphs (or any class of bounded genus) has bounded reduced bandwidth [BKW '26], this reproves a recent result [GPP, LICS '25] that planar graphs do not first-order transduce the 3-dimensional grids.

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arXiv2026

Erdős-Pósa property of $A$-paths in unoriented group-labelled graphs

We characterize the obstructions to the Erdős-Pósa property of $A$-paths in unoriented group-labelled graphs. As a result, we prove that for every finite abelian group $Γ$ and for every subset $Λ$ of $Γ$, the family of $Γ$-labelled $A$-paths whose lengths are in $Λ$ satisfies the half-integral Erdős-Pósa property. Moreover, we give a characterization of such $Γ$ and $Λ\subseteqΓ$ for which the same family of $A$-paths satisfies the full Erdős-Pósa property.

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arXiv2025

Reduced bandwidth: a qualitative strengthening of twin-width in minor-closed classes (and beyond)

In a reduction sequence of a graph, vertices are successively identified until the graph has one vertex. At each step, when identifying $u$ and $v$, each edge incident to exactly one of $u$ and $v$ is coloured red. Bonnet, Kim, Thomassé and Watrigant [J. ACM 2022] defined the twin-width of a graph $G$ to be the minimum integer $k$ such that there is a reduction sequence of $G$ in which every red graph has maximum degree at most $k$. For any graph parameter $f$, we define the reduced $f$ of a graph $G$ to be the minimum integer $k$ such that there is a reduction sequence of $G$ in which every red graph has $f$ at most $k$. Our focus is on graph classes with bounded reduced bandwidth, which implies and is stronger than bounded twin-width (reduced maximum degree). We show that every proper minor-closed class has bounded reduced bandwidth, which is qualitatively stronger than an analogous result of Bonnet et al.\ for bounded twin-width. In many instances, we also make quantitative improvements. For example, all previous upper bounds on the twin-width of planar graphs were at least $2^{1000}$. We show that planar graphs have reduced bandwidth at most $466$ and twin-width at most $583$. Our bounds for graphs of Euler genus $γ$ are $O(γ)$. Lastly, we show that fixed powers of graphs in a proper minor-closed class have bounded reduced bandwidth (irrespective of the degree of the vertices). In particular, we show that map graphs of Euler genus $γ$ have reduced bandwidth $O(γ^4)$. Lastly, we separate twin-width and reduced bandwidth by showing that any infinite class of expanders excluding a fixed complete bipartite subgraph has unbounded reduced bandwidth, while there are bounded-degree expanders with twin-width at most 6.

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arXiv2025

A new width parameter of graphs based on edge cuts: $α$-edge-crossing width

We introduce graph width parameters, called $α$-edge-crossing width and edge-crossing width. These are defined in terms of the number of edges crossing a bag of a tree-cut decomposition. They are motivated by edge-cut width, recently introduced by Brand et al. (WG 2022). We show that edge-crossing width is equivalent to the known parameter tree-partition-width. On the other hand, $α$-edge-crossing width is a new parameter; tree-cut width and $α$-edge-crossing width are incomparable, and they both lie between tree-partition-width and edge-cut width. We provide an algorithm that, for a given $n$-vertex graph $G$ and integers $k$ and $α$, in time $2^{O((α+k)\log (α+k))}n^2$ either outputs a tree-cut decomposition certifying that the $α$-edge-crossing width of $G$ is at most $2α^2+5k$ or confirms that the $α$-edge-crossing width of $G$ is more than $k$. As applications, for every fixed $α$, we obtain FPT algorithms for the List Coloring and Precoloring Extension problems parameterized by $α$-edge-crossing width. They were known to be W[1]-hard parameterized by tree-partition-width, and FPT parameterized by edge-cut width, and we close the complexity gap between these two parameters.

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arXiv2025

Unavoidable pivot-minors in graphs of large rank-depth

Shrub-depth and rank-depth are related graph parameters that are dense analogs of tree-depth. We prove that for every positive integer $t$, every graph of sufficiently large rank-depth contains a pivot-minor isomorphic to a path on $t$ vertices or a graph consisting of two disjoint cliques of size $t$ joined by a half graph. This answers an open problem raised by Kwon, McCarty, Oum, and Wollan in 2021.

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arXiv2025

Unavoidable butterfly minors in digraphs of large cycle rank

Cycle rank is one of the depth parameters for digraphs introduced by Eggan in 1963. We show that there exists a function $f:\mathbb{N}\to \mathbb{N}$ such that every digraph of cycle rank at least $f(k)$ contains a directed cycle chain, a directed ladder, or a directed tree chain of order $k$ as a butterfly minor. We also investigate a new connection between cycle rank and a directed analogue of the weak coloring number of graphs.

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arXiv2025

A unified Erdős-Pósa theorem for cycles in graphs labelled by multiple abelian groups

In 1965, Erdős and Pósa proved that there is an (approximate) duality between the maximum size of a packing of cycles and the minimum size of a vertex set hitting all cycles. Such a duality does not hold for odd cycles, and Dejter and Neumann-Lara asked in 1988 to find all pairs ${(\ell, z)}$ of integers where such a duality holds for the family of cycles of length $\ell$ modulo $z$. We characterise all such pairs, and we further generalise this characterisation to cycles in graphs labelled with a bounded number of abelian groups, whose values avoid a bounded number of elements of each group. This unifies almost all known types of cycles that admit such a duality, and it also provides new results. Moreover, we characterise the obstructions to such a duality in this setting, and thereby obtain an analogous characterisation for cycles in graphs embeddable on a fixed compact orientable surface.

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arXiv2025

The Erdős-Pósa property for circle graphs as vertex-minors

We prove that for any circle graph $H$ with at least one edge and for any positive integer $k$, there exists an integer $t=t(k,H)$ so that every graph $G$ either has a vertex-minor isomorphic to the disjoint union of $k$ copies of $H$, or has a $t$-perturbation with no vertex-minor isomorphic to $H$. Using the same techniques, we also prove that for any planar multigraph $H$, every binary matroid either has a minor isomorphic to the cycle matroid of $kH$, or is a low-rank perturbation of a binary matroid with no minor isomorphic to the cycle matroid of $H$.

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arXiv2025

A coarse Erdős-Pósa theorem

An induced packing of cycles in a graph is a set of vertex-disjoint cycles with no edges between them. We generalise the classic Erdős-Pósa theorem to induced packings of cycles. More specifically, we show that there exist functions $f(k,\ell)=\mathcal{O}(\ell k\log k)$ and $g(k)=\mathcal{O}(k\log k)$ such that for all integers $k\geq1$ and $\ell\geq3$, every graph $G$ contains either an induced packing of $k$ cycles of length at least $\ell$, not necessarily induced cycles, or sets $X_1$ and $X_2$ of vertices with $|X_1|\leq f(k,\ell)$ and $|X_2|\leq g(k)$ such that, after removing the closed neighbourhood of $X_1$ or the ball of radius $\ell$ around $X_2$, the resulting graph has no cycle of length at least $\ell$ in $G$. Our proof is constructive and yields a polynomial-time algorithm finding either the induced packing or the sets $X_1$ and $X_2$ when $\ell$ is a constant. Furthermore, we show that for every positive integer $d$, if a graph $G$ does not contain two cycles at distance more than $d$, then $G$ contains sets $X_1$ and $X_2$ of vertices with $|X_1|\leq12(d+1)$ and $|X_2|\leq12$ such that, after removing the ball of radius $2d$ around $X_1$ or the ball of radius $3d$ around $X_2$, the resulting graphs are forests. As a corollary, we prove that every graph with no $K_{1,t}$ induced subgraph and no induced packing of $k$ cycles of length at least $\ell$ has tree-independence number at most $\mathcal{O}(t\ell k\log k)$, and one can construct a corresponding tree-decomposition in polynomial time when $\ell$ is a constant. This resolves a special case of a conjecture of Dallard et al. (arXiv:2402.11222), and implies that on such graphs, many NP-hard problems, are solvable in polynomial time. On the other hand, we show that the class of all graphs with no $K_{1,3}$ induced subgraph and no two cycles at distance more than $2$ has unbounded tree-independence number.

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arXiv2024

A half-integral Erdős-Pósa theorem for directed odd cycles

We prove that there exists a function $f:\mathbb{N}\rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ such that every directed graph $G$ contains either $k$ directed odd cycles where every vertex of $G$ is contained in at most two of them, or a set of at most $f(k)$ vertices meeting all directed odd cycles. We also give a polynomial-time algorithm for fixed $k$ which outputs one of the two outcomes. Using this algorithmic result, we give a polynomial-time algorithm for fixed $k$ to decide whether such $k$ directed odd cycles exist, or there are no $k$ vertex-disjoint directed odd cycles. This extends the half-integral Erdős-Pósa theorem for undirected odd cycles by Reed [Combinatorica 1999] to directed graphs.

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arXiv2024

A characterization of graphs of radius-$r$ flip-width at most $2$

The $r$-flip-width of a graph, for $r\in \mathbb{N}\cup \{\infty\}$, is a graph parameter defined in terms of a variant of the cops and robber game, called the flipper game, and it was introduced by Toruńczyk (FOCS 2023). We prove that for every $r\in (\mathbb{N}\setminus \{1\})\cup \{\infty\}$, the class of graphs of $r$-flip-width at most $2$ is exactly the class of ($C_5$, bull, gem, co-gem)-free graphs, which are known as totally decomposable graphs with respect to bi-joins.

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arXiv2024

Treewidth versus clique number. IV. Tree-independence number of graphs excluding an induced star

Many recent works address the question of characterizing induced obstructions to bounded treewidth. In 2022, Lozin and Razgon completely answered this question for graph classes defined by finitely many forbidden induced subgraphs. Their result also implies a characterization of graph classes defined by finitely many forbidden induced subgraphs that are $(tw,ω)$-bounded, that is, treewidth can only be large due to the presence of a large clique. This condition is known to be satisfied for any graph class with bounded tree-independence number, a graph parameter introduced independently by Yolov in 2018 and by Dallard, Milanič, and Štorgel in 2024. Dallard et al. conjectured that $(tw,ω)$-boundedness is actually equivalent to bounded tree-independence number. We address this conjecture in the context of graph classes defined by finitely many forbidden induced subgraphs and prove it for the case of graph classes excluding an induced star. We also prove it for subclasses of the class of line graphs, determine the exact values of the tree-independence numbers of line graphs of complete graphs and line graphs of complete bipartite graphs, and characterize the tree-independence number of $P_4$-free graphs, which implies a linear-time algorithm for its computation. Applying the algorithmic framework provided in a previous paper of the series leads to polynomial-time algorithms for the Maximum Weight Independent Set problem in an infinite family of graph classes.

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arXiv2023

Computing pivot-minors

A graph $G$ contains a graph $H$ as a pivot-minor if $H$ can be obtained from $G$ by applying a sequence of vertex deletions and edge pivots. Pivot-minors play an important role in the study of rank-width. Pivot-minors have mainly been studied from a structural perspective. In this paper we perform the first systematic computational complexity study of pivot-minors. We first prove that the Pivot-Minor problem, which asks if a given graph $G$ contains a pivot-minor isomorphic to a given graph $H$, is NP-complete. If $H$ is not part of the input, we denote the problem by $H$-Pivot-Minor. We give a certifying polynomial-time algorithm for $H$-Pivot-Minor when (1) $H$ is an induced subgraph of $P_3+tP_1$ for some integer $t\geq 0$, (2) $H=K_{1,t}$ for some integer $t\geq 1$, or (3) $|V(H)|\leq 4$ except when $H \in \{K_4,C_3+ P_1\}$. Let ${\cal F}_H$ be the set of induced-subgraph-minimal graphs that contain a pivot-minor isomorphic to $H$. To prove the above statement, we either show that there is an integer $c_H$ such that all graphs in ${\cal F}_H$ have at most $c_H$ vertices, or we determine ${\cal F}_H$ precisely, for each of the above cases.

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arXiv2023

A polynomial kernel for $3$-leaf power deletion

For a non-negative integer $\ell$, the $\ell$-leaf power of a tree $T$ is a simple graph $G$ on the leaves of $T$ such that two vertices are adjacent in $G$ if and only if their distance in $T$ is at most $\ell$. We provide a polynomial kernel for the problem of deciding whether we can delete at most $k$ vertices to make an input graph a $3$-leaf power of some tree. More specifically, we present a polynomial-time algorithm for an input instance $(G,k)$ for the problem to output an equivalent instance $(G',k')$ such that $k'\leq k$ and $G'$ has at most $O(k^{14})$ vertices.

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arXiv2023

On a variant of dichromatic number for digraphs with prescribed sets of arcs

In this paper, we consider a variant of dichromatic number on digraphs with prescribed sets of arcs. Let $D$ be a digraph and let $Z_1, Z_2$ be two sets of arcs in $D$. For a subdigraph $H$ of $D$, let $A(H)$ denote the set of all arcs of $H$. Let $μ(D, Z_1, Z_2)$ be the minimum number of parts in a vertex partition $\mathcal{P}$ of $D$ such that for every $X\in \mathcal{P}$, the subdigraph of $D$ induced by $X$ contains no directed cycle $C$ with $|A(C)\cap Z_1|\neq |A(C)\cap Z_2|$. For $Z_1=A(D)$ and $Z_2=\emptyset$, $μ(D, Z_1, Z_2)$ is equal to the dichromatic number of $D$. We prove that for every digraph $F$ and every tuple $(a_e,b_e,r_e, q_e)$ of integers with $q_e\ge 2$ and $\gcd(a_e,q_e)=\gcd(b_e,q_e)=1$ for each arc $e$ of $F$, there exists an integer $N$ such that if $μ(D, Z_1, Z_2)\ge N$, then $D$ contains a subdigraph isomorphic to a subdivision of $F$ in which each arc $e$ of $F$ is subdivided into a directed path~$P_e$ such that~$a_e|A(P_e)\cap Z_1|+b_e|A(P_e)\cap Z_2|\equiv {r_e}\pmod {q_e}$. This generalizes a theorem of Steiner [Subdivisions with congruence constraints in digraphs of large chromatic number, arXiv:2208.06358] which corresponds to the case when $(a_e, b_e, Z_1, Z_2)=(1, 1, A(D), \emptyset)$.

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