Convex and isometric domination of (weak) dominating pair graphs

Abstract

A set D of vertices in a graph G is a dominating set if every vertex of G, which is not in D, has a neighbor in D. A set of vertices D in G is convex (respectively, isometric), if all vertices in all shortest paths (respectively, all vertices in one of the shortest paths) between any two vertices in D lie in D. The problem of finding a minimum convex dominating (respectively, isometric dominating) set is considered in this paper from algorithmic point of view. For the class of weak dominating pair graphs (i.e., the graphs that contain a dominating pair, which is a pair of vertices x,y∈V(G) such that vertices of any path between x and y form a dominating set), we present an efficient algorithm that finds a minimum isometric dominating set of such a graph. On the other hand, we prove that even if one restricts to weak dominating pair graphs that are also chordal graphs, the problem of deciding whether there exists a convex dominating set bounded by a given arbitrary positive integer is NP-complete. By further restricting the class of graphs to chordal dominating pair graphs (i.e., the chordal graphs in which every connected induced subgraph has a dominating pair) we are able to find a polynomial time algorithm that determines the minimum size of a convex dominating set of such a graph.