Classes of intersection digraphs with good algorithmic properties

TL;DR

This paper introduces bi-mim-width, a new graph width parameter for intersection digraphs, and demonstrates its boundedness in various classes, enabling efficient algorithms for several locally checkable problems.

Contribution

It defines bi-mim-width for directed graphs, proves boundedness for reflexive intersection digraph classes, and develops a unified framework for solving related problems efficiently.

Findings

Reflexive H-digraphs have linear bi-mim-width at most 12|E(H)|.

Bounded bi-mim-width allows polynomial-time algorithms for key problems.

Introduces a directed locally checkable problems framework.

Abstract

An intersection digraph is a digraph where every vertex $v$ is represented by an ordered pair $(S_v, T_v)$ of sets such that there is an edge from $v$ to $w$ if and only if $S_v$ and $T_w$ intersect. An intersection digraph is reflexive if $S_v\cap T_v\neq \emptyset$ for every vertex $v$. Compared to well-known undirected intersection graphs like interval graphs and permutation graphs, not many algorithmic applications on intersection digraphs have been developed. Motivated by the successful story on algorithmic applications of intersection graphs using a graph width parameter called mim-width, we introduce its directed analogue called `bi-mim-width' and prove that various classes of reflexive intersection digraphs have bounded bi-mim-width. In particular, we show that as a natural extension of $H$-graphs, reflexive $H$-digraphs have linear bi-mim-width at most $12|E(H)|$, which extends a bound on the linear mim-width of $H$-graphs [On the Tractability of Optimization Problems on $H$-Graphs. Algorithmica 2020]. For applications, we introduce a novel framework of directed versions of locally checkable problems, that streamlines the definitions and the study of many problems in the literature and facilitates their common algorithmic treatment. We obtain unified polynomial-time algorithms for these problems on digraphs of bounded bi-mim-width, when a branch decomposition is given. Locally checkable problems include Kernel, Dominating Set, and Directed $H$-Homomorphism.