On the Kernel and Related Problems in Interval Digraphs

Abstract

Given a digraph G, a set $X\subseteq V(G)$ is said to be an absorbing set (resp. dominating set) if every vertex in the graph is either in X or is an in-neighbour (resp. out-neighbour) of a vertex in X. A set $S\subseteq V(G)$ is said to be an independent set if no two vertices in S are adjacent in G. A kernel (resp. solution) of G is an independent and absorbing (resp. dominating) set in G. The problem of deciding if there is a kernel (or solution) in an input digraph is known to be NP-complete. Similarly, the problems of computing a minimum cardinality dominating set or absorbing set or kernel, and the problems of computing a maximum cardinality independent set or kernel, are all known to be NP-hard for general digraphs. We explore the algorithmic complexity of these problems in the well known class of interval digraphs. A digraph G is an interval digraph if a pair of intervals $(S_u,T_u)$ can be assigned to each vertex u of G such that $(u,v)\in E(G)$ if and only if $S_u\cap T_v\ne \emptyset$. Many different subclasses of interval digraphs have been defined and studied in the literature by restricting the kinds of pairs of intervals that can be assigned to the vertices. We observe that several of these classes, like interval catch digraphs, interval nest digraphs, adjusted interval digraphs and chronological interval digraphs, are subclasses of the more general class of reflexive interval digraphs—which arise when we require that the two intervals assigned to a vertex have to intersect. We see as our main contribution the identification of the class of reflexive interval digraphs as an important class of digraphs. We show that while the problems mentioned above are NP-complete, and even hard to approximate, on interval digraphs (even on some very restricted subclasses of interval digraphs called point-point digraphs, where the two intervals assigned to each vertex are required to be degenerate), they are all efficiently solvable, in most of the cases linear-time solvable, in the class of reflexive interval digraphs. The results we obtain improve and generalize several existing algorithms and structural results for subclasses of reflexive interval digraphs. In particular, we obtain a vertex ordering characterization of reflexive interval digraphs that implies the existence of an $O(n+m)$ time algorithm for computing a maximum cardinality independent set in a reflexive interval digraph, improving and generalizing the earlier known O(nm) time algorithm for the same problem for the interval nest digraphs. (Here m denotes the number of edges in the digraph not counting the self-loops.) We also show that reflexive interval digraphs are kernel-perfect and that a kernel in such digraphs can be computed in linear time. This generalizes and improves an earlier result that interval nest digraphs are kernel-perfect and that a kernel can be computed in such digraphs in O(nm) time. The structural characterizations that we show for point-point digraphs, apart from helping us construct the NP-completeness/APX-hardness reductions, imply that these digraphs can be recognized in linear time. We also obtain some new results for undirected graphs along the way: (a) We describe an $O(n(n+m))$ time algorithm for computing a minimum cardinality (undirected) independent dominating set in cocomparability graphs, which slightly improves the existing $O(n^3)$ time algorithm for the same problem by Kratsch and Stewart; and (b) We show that the Red-Blue Dominating Set problem, which is NP-complete even for planar bipartite graphs, is linear-time solvable on interval bigraphs, which is a class of bipartite (undirected) graphs closely related to interval digraphs.