Parameterizing the Complexity of Finding Long Paths in DAGs

Cut Query Reachability for DAGs with Subquadratic Queries

This work restricts its attention to directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) and obtains a deterministic single-source reachability algorithm using $O(n \sqrt{n \log n})$ queries, based on a topological sort algorithm, and can also be adapted to compute single-source shortest paths in DAGs.

Exponential Lower Bounds for Integer-Weighted Shortest-Paths Preservers of DAGs

We study a graph simplification problem introduced by Bernstein, Bodwin, and Wein [ITCS'24]. We start with a graph with arbitrarily large positive edge weights and the goal is to reweight the edges to small aspect ratio (ratio between largest and smallest weight) while preserving the shortest paths structure (the sequence of vertices and edges along shortest paths). They studied whether polynomial aspect ratio is always possible. They proved that for general graphs, both directed and undirected, it is not: there exist graphs for which any shortest-paths preserving reweighting requires exponential aspect ratio. In contrast, they showed that every DAG (directed acyclic graph) admits a reweighting with linear aspect ratio. However, the resulting edge weights are not integers. This motivated them to pose the open question of whether all DAGs admit a reweighting with polynomially-bounded integer edge weights. Our main result is to answer this question in the negative: we prove that there exist DAGs for which any shortest-paths preserving integer reweighting requires weights of size $2^{\Omega(n)}$. In fact, this is even true when the DAG has very simple structure: 3 layers of vertices with only 3 vertices in the middle layer. In contrast, we show that if the number of vertices in the middle layer is decreased to 2, then a linear upper bound is possible. We extend our exponential lower bound to the approximate version of the problem where only a single $\alpha$-approximate shortest path in the original graph must be preserved as an exact shortest path in the reweighted graph. Our exponential lower bound holds even for any finite approximation ratio $\alpha>1$.

Local Representatives and Shortest Completions for Next-to-Shortest Paths in Directed Graphs

Given a directed graph with positive edge weights and two vertices s,t, a next-to-shortest s-t path is a shortest simple s-t path among those whose length is strictly larger than the shortest-path distance. The problem was introduced by Lalgudi, Papaefthymiou and Potkonjak in 1996; it is NP-hard when zero-weight edges are allowed, and its complexity on positively weighted digraphs remained open for almost three decades until Chen, Wein and Zhang recently gave a polynomial-time algorithm running in O(n^4 m^3 log n) time. We give a substantially faster algorithm within their optimal-middle-segment framework. The core idea is to split the problem into"choosing a prefix"and"completing it". Given a prefix P: s ->A made of shortest-path edges, delete the vertices used by P, forbid leaving A along shortest-path edges, and the best completion is one shortest-path computation. The difficulty lies in choosing P: even for a fixed A, deciding whether some shortest prefix admits a completion is NP-complete. We do not solve these fixed-A subproblems one by one. Fix any globally optimal next-to-shortest path; its middle segment induces a boundary edge x ->c in the shortest-path DAG. For the correct triple (A,B,x), the optimal path certifies c as a feasible next hop, and we prove that every feasible next hop that is not earlier than c in a topological order can be combined with the same middle segment into another globally optimal path. Hence only the feasible next hop of maximum topological index is kept per triple, giving O(n^3) representatives, all generated by a two-dimensional DAG dynamic program with a local reward. The total running time is O(n^3 (m + n log n)), and O(n^3 m) on unweighted graphs. The proof rests on an uncrossing lemma: the last intersection between a reference prefix and the candidate's partner suffix can always be moved strictly earlier, which cannot go on forever.

Instance-Optimality of Bidirectional Dijkstra on Simple Graphs

It is shown that bidirectional Dijkstra is still instance-optimal on simple undirected weighted graphs under the order-oblivious model, where incident edges are given in a random order, and under the order-dependent model, where bidirectional Dijkstra is not instance-optimal.

The Parameterized Complexity of Problems on Outer k-Planar Graphs

It is shown that outer k-planar graphs have mim-width at most k+2, that graphs of cut-width at most k are outer 2k-planar, and that graphs of feedback edge set number at most k are outer 6k-planar, and that many graph parameters are incomparable with outer k-planarity, thereby clarifying its position within the graph parameter hierarchy.

Upper Clique Transversal on Interval Graphs and Beyond