Temporal graph classes: A view through temporal separators

Till Fluschnik, Hendrik Molter, Rolf Niedermeier, Malte Renken, Philipp Zschoche

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

54 Scopus citations

Abstract

We investigate for temporal graphs the computational complexity of separating two distinct vertices s and z by vertex deletion. In a temporal graph, the vertex set is fixed but the edges have (discrete) time labels. Since the corresponding TEMPORAL (s,z)-SEPARATION problem is NP-complete, it is natural to investigate whether relevant special cases exist that are computationally tractable. To this end, we study restrictions of the underlying (static) graph—there we observe polynomial-time solvability in the case of bounded treewidth—as well as restrictions concerning the “temporal evolution” along the time steps. Systematically studying partially novel concepts in this direction, we identify sharp borders between tractable and intractable cases.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)197-218
Number of pages22
JournalTheoretical Computer Science
Volume806
DOIs
StatePublished - 2 Feb 2020
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Dynamic programming
  • Fixed-parameter tractability
  • NP-completeness
  • Temporal paths
  • Temporal restrictions
  • Unit interval graphs

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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