Structural Parameterization of Locating-Dominating Set and Test Cover

TL;DR

This paper explores the parameterized complexity of locating-dominating set and test cover problems, providing new algorithms and kernelization results for parameters like vertex cover and feedback edge set, and establishing complexity lower bounds.

Contribution

It introduces improved algorithms for test cover and locating-dominating set parameterized by vertex cover and feedback edge set, and resolves open questions on kernelization and lower bounds.

Findings

Test cover solvable in slightly super-exponential time with respect to item set size.

Locating-dominating set admits a linear kernel when parameterized by feedback edge set.

Neither problem admits a subquadratic compression unless NP is in coNP/poly.

Abstract

We investigate structural parameterizations of two identification problems: LOCATING-DOMINATING SET and TEST COVER. In the first problem, an input is a graph $G$ on $n$ vertices and an integer $k$, and one asks if there is a subset $S$ of $k$ vertices such that any two distinct vertices not in $S$ are dominated by distinct subsets of $S$. In the second problem, an input is a set of items $U$, a set of subsets $\mathcal{F}$ of $U$ called $tests$ and an integer $k$, and one asks if there is a set $S$ of at most $k$ tests such that any two items belong to distinct subsets of tests of $S$. These two problems are "identification" analogues of DOMINATING SET and SET COVER, respectively. Chakraborty et al. [ISAAC 2024] proved that both the problems admit conditional double-exponential lower bounds and matching algorithms when parameterized by treewidth of the input graph. We continue this line of investigation and consider parameters larger than treewidth, like vertex cover number and feedback edge set number. We design a nontrivial dynamic programming scheme to solve TEST COVER in "slightly super-exponential" time $2^{O(|U|\log |U|)}(|U|+|\mathcal{F}|)^{O(1)}$ in the number $|U|$ of items and LOCATING-DOMINATING SET in time $2^{O(\textsf{vc} \log \textsf{vc})} \cdot n^{O(1)}$, where $\textsf{vc}$ is the vertex cover number and $n$ is the order of the graph. This shows that the lower bound results with respect to treewidth from Chakraborty et al. [ISAAC 2024] cannot be extended to vertex cover number. We also show that, parameterized by feedback edge set number, LOCATING-DOMINATING SET admits a linear kernel thereby answering an open question in [Cappelle et al., LAGOS 2021]. Finally, we show that neither LOCATING-DOMINATING SET nor TEST COVER is likely to admit a compression algorithm returning an input with a subquadratic number of bits, unless $\textsf{NP} \subseteq \textsf{coNP}/poly$.