Oriented Diameter of Star Graphs

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new routing algorithm for the oriented star graph that significantly reduces the diameter, providing bounds close to the theoretical minimum, and improves understanding of its routing efficiency.

Contribution

A novel distributed routing algorithm for the oriented star graph that tightens the bounds on its diameter, demonstrating near-optimal routing performance.

Findings

Diameter of the oriented star graph is at most 2n+4.

Routing algorithm achieves at most 4d+4 hops for distance d.

Diameter lower bound is at least 2n for n ≥ 7.

Abstract

An {\em orientation} of an undirected graph $G$ is an assignment of exactly one direction to each edge of $G$. Converting two-way traffic networks to one-way traffic networks and bidirectional communication networks to unidirectional communication networks are practical instances of graph orientations. In these contexts minimising the diameter of the resulting oriented graph is of prime interest. The $n$-star network topology was proposed as an alternative to the hypercube network topology for multiprocessor systems by Akers and Krishnamurthy [IEEE Trans. on Computers (1989)]. The $n$-star graph $S_n$ consists of $n!$ vertices, each labelled with a distinct permutation of $[n]$. Two vertices are adjacent if their labels differ exactly in the first and one other position. $S_n$ is an $(n-1)$-regular, vertex-transitive graph with diameter $\lfloor 3(n-1)/2 \rfloor$. Orientations of $S_n$, called unidirectional star graphs and distributed routing protocols over them were studied by Day and Tripathi [Information Processing Letters (1993)] and Fujita [The First International Symposium on Computing and Networking (CANDAR 2013)]. Fujita showed that the (directed) diameter of this unidirectional star graph $\overrightarrow{S_n}$ is at most $\lceil{5n/2}\rceil + 2$. In this paper, we propose a new distributed routing algorithm for the same $\overrightarrow{S_n}$ analysed by Fujita, which routes a packet from any node $s$ to any node $t$ at an undirected distance $d$ from $s$ using at most $\min\{4d+4, 2n+4\}$ hops. This shows that the (directed) diameter of $\overrightarrow{S_n}$ is at most $2n+4$. We also show that the diameter of $\overrightarrow{S_n}$ is at least $2n$ when $n \geq 7$, thereby showing that our upper bound is tight up to an additive factor.