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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.89
URN: urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-164309
URL: http://dagstuhl.sunsite.rwth-aachen.de/volltexte/2022/16430/
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Liao, Chao ; Chen, Qingyun ; Laekhanukit, Bundit ; Zhang, Yuhao

Almost Tight Approximation Hardness for Single-Source Directed k-Edge-Connectivity

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Abstract

In the k-outconnected directed Steiner tree problem (k-DST), we are given an n-vertex directed graph G = (V,E) with edge costs, a connectivity requirement k, a root r ∈ V and a set of terminals T ⊆ V. The goal is to find a minimum-cost subgraph H ⊆ G that has k edge-disjoint paths from the root vertex r to every terminal t ∈ T. The problem is NP-hard, and inapproximability results are known in several parameters, e.g., hardness in terms of n: log^{2-ε}n-hardness for k = 1 [Halperin and Krauthgamer, STOC'03], 2^{log^{1-ε}n}-hardness for general case [Cheriyan, Laekhanukit, Naves and Vetta, SODA'12], hardness in terms of k [Cheriyan et al., SODA'12; Laekhanukit, SODA'14; Manurangsi, IPL'19] and hardness in terms of |T| [Laekhanukit, SODA'14].
In this paper, we show the approximation hardness of k-DST for various parameters.
- Ω(|T|/log |T|)-approximation hardness, which holds under the standard complexity assumption NP≠ ZPP. The inapproximability ratio is tightened to Ω(|T|) under the Strongish Planted Clique Hypothesis [Manurangsi, Rubinstein and Schramm, ITCS 2021]. The latter hardness result matches the approximation ratio of |T| obtained by a trivial approximation algorithm, thus closing the long-standing open problem.
- Ω(2^{k/2} / k)-approximation hardness for the general case of k-DST under the assumption NP≠ZPP. This is the first hardness result known for survivable network design problems with an inapproximability ratio exponential in k.
- Ω((k/L)^{L/4})-approximation hardness for k-DST on L-layered graphs for L ≤ O(log n). This almost matches the approximation ratio of O(k^{L-1}⋅ L ⋅ log |T|) achieved in O(n^L)-time due to Laekhanukit [ICALP'16].
We further extend our hardness results in terms of |T| to the undirected cases of k-DST, namely the single-source k-vertex-connected Steiner tree and the k-edge-connected group Steiner tree problems. Thus, we obtain Ω(|T|/log |T|) and Ω(|T|) approximation hardness for both problems under the assumption NP≠ ZPP and the Strongish Planted Clique Hypothesis, respectively. This again matches the upper bound obtained by trivial algorithms.

BibTeX - Entry

@InProceedings{liao_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.89,
  author =	{Liao, Chao and Chen, Qingyun and Laekhanukit, Bundit and Zhang, Yuhao},
  title =	{{Almost Tight Approximation Hardness for Single-Source Directed k-Edge-Connectivity}},
  booktitle =	{49th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2022)},
  pages =	{89:1--89:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-235-8},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{229},
  editor =	{Boja\'{n}czyk, Miko{\l}aj and Merelli, Emanuela and Woodruff, David P.},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2022/16430},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-164309},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2022.89},
  annote =	{Keywords: Directed Steiner Tree, Hardness of Approximation, Fault-Tolerant and Survivable Network Design}
}

Keywords: Directed Steiner Tree, Hardness of Approximation, Fault-Tolerant and Survivable Network Design
Collection: 49th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2022)
Issue Date: 2022
Date of publication: 28.06.2022


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