Arc‐disjoint out‐branchings and in‐branchings in semicomplete digraphs

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Publication:6201032




Abstract: An out-branching Bu+ (in-branching Bu) in a digraph D is a connected spanning subdigraph of D in which every vertex except the vertex u, called the root, has in-degree (out-degree) one. It is well-known that there exists a polynomial algorithm for deciding whether a given digraph has k arc-disjoint out-branchings with prescribed roots (k is part of the input). In sharp contrast to this, it is already NP-complete to decide if a digraph has one out-branching which is arc-disjoint from some in-branching. A digraph is {�f semicomplete} if it has no pair of non adjacent vertices. A {�f tournament} is a semicomplete digraph without directed cycles of length 2. In this paper we give a complete classification of semicomplete digraphs which have an out-branching Bu+ which is arc-disjoint from some in-branching Bv where u,v are prescribed vertices of D. Our characterization, which is surprisingly simple, generalizes a complicated characterization for tournaments from 1991 by the first author and our proof implies the existence of a polynomial algorithm for checking whether a given semicomplete digraph has such a pair of branchings for prescribed vertices u,v and construct a solution if one exists. This confirms a conjecture of Bang-Jensen for the case of semicomplete digraphs.









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