DAG-Width and parity games

  • Authors:

  • Dietmar Berwanger;Anuj Dawar;Paul Hunter;Stephan Kreutzer

  • Affiliations:

  • LaBRI, Université de Bordeaux 1;University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory;Logic and Discrete Systems, Institute for Computer Science, Humboldt-University Berlin;Logic and Discrete Systems, Institute for Computer Science, Humboldt-University Berlin

  • Venue:
  • STACS'06 Proceedings of the 23rd Annual conference on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

Tree-width is a well-known metric on undirected graphs that measures how tree-like a graph is and gives a notion of graph decomposition that proves useful in algorithm development. Tree-width is characterised by a game known as the cops-and-robber game where a number of cops chase a robber on the graph. We consider the natural adaptation of this game to directed graphs and show that monotone strategies in the game yield a measure with an associated notion of graph decomposition that can be seen to describe how close a directed graph is to a directed acyclic graph (DAG). This promises to be useful in developing algorithms on directed graphs. In particular, we show that the problem of determining the winner of a parity game is solvable in polynomial time on graphs of bounded DAG-width. We also consider the relationship between DAG-width and other measures such as entanglement and directed tree-width. One consequence we obtain is that certain NP-complete problems such as Hamiltonicity and disjoint paths are polynomial-time computable on graphs of bounded DAG-width.