Maximum Bipartite Subgraphs of Geometric Intersection Graphs

Abstract

We study the Maximum Bipartite Subgraph ([Formula: see text]) problem, which is defined as follows. Given a set [Formula: see text] of [Formula: see text] geometric objects in the plane, we want to compute a maximum-size subset [Formula: see text] such that the intersection graph of the objects in [Formula: see text] is bipartite. We first give an [Formula: see text]-time algorithm that computes an almost optimal solution for the problem on circular-arc graphs. We show that the [Formula: see text] problem is [Formula: see text]-hard on geometric graphs for which the maximum independent set is [Formula: see text]-hard (hence, it is [Formula: see text]-hard even on unit squares and unit disks). On the other hand, we give a [Formula: see text] for the problem on unit squares and unit disks. Moreover, we show fast approximation algorithms with small-constant factors for the problem on unit squares, unit disks, and unit-height axis parallel rectangles. Additionally, we prove that the Maximum Triangle-free Subgraph ([Formula: see text]) problem is NP-hard for axis-parallel rectangles. Here the objective is the same as that of the [Formula: see text] except the intersection graph induced by the set [Formula: see text] needs to be triangle-free only (instead of being bipartite).