Component Order Connectivity in Directed Graphs

Abstract

A directed graph D is semicomplete if for every pair x, y of vertices of D, there is at least one arc between x and y. Thus, a tournament is a semicomplete digraph. In the Directed Component Order Connectivity (DCOC) problem, given a digraph D=(V,A) and a pair of natural numbers k and ell , we are to decide whether there is a subset X of V of size k such that the largest strongly connected component in D-X has at most ell vertices. Note that DCOC reduces to the Directed Feedback Vertex Set problem for ell =1. We study the parameterized complexity of DCOC for general and semicomplete digraphs with the following parameters: k, ell ,ell +k and n-ell . In particular, we prove that DCOC with parameter k on semicomplete digraphs can be solved in time O^*(2^{16k}) but not in time O^*(2^{o(k)}) unless the Exponential Time Hypothesis (ETH) fails. The upper bound O^*(2^{16k}) implies the upper bound O^*(2^{16(n-ell )}) for the parameter n-ell . We complement the latter by showing that there is no algorithm of time complexity O^*(2^{o({n-ell })}) unless ETH fails. Finally, we improve (in dependency on ell ) the upper bound of Göke, Marx and Mnich (2019) for the time complexity of DCOC with parameter ell +k on general digraphs from O^*(2^{O(kell log (kell ))}) to O^*(2^{O(klog (kell ))}). Note that Drange, Dregi and van ’t Hof (2016) proved that even for the undirected version of DCOC on split graphs there is no algorithm of running time O^*(2^{o(klog ell )}) unless ETH fails and it is a long-standing problem to decide whether Directed Feedback Vertex Set admits an algorithm of time complexity O^*(2^{o(klog k)}).