The Complexity of Graph Exploration Games

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Fuchs, Janosch, Grüne, Christoph, Janßen, Tom
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2023
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author Fuchs, Janosch
Grüne, Christoph
Janßen, Tom
author_facet Fuchs, Janosch
Grüne, Christoph
Janßen, Tom
contents Graph Exploration problems ask a searcher to explore an unknown environment. The environment is modeled as a graph, where the searcher needs to visit each vertex beginning at some vertex. Treasure Hunt problems are a variation of Graph Exploration, in which the searcher needs to find a hidden treasure, which is located at a designated vertex. Usually these problems are modeled as online problems, and any online algorithm performs poorly because it has too little knowledge about the instance to react adequately to the requests of the adversary. Thus, the impact of a priori knowledge is of interest. One form of a priori knowledge is an unlabeled map, which is an isomorphic copy of the graph. We analyze Graph Exploration and Treasure Hunt problems with an unlabeled map that is provided to the searcher. For this, we formulate decision variants of both problems by interpreting the online problems as a game between the online algorithm (the searcher) and the adversary. The map, however, is not controllable by the adversary. The question is whether the searcher is able to explore the graph completely or find the treasure for all possible decisions of the adversary. We analyze these games in multiple settings, with and without costs on the edges, on directed and undirected graphs and with different constraints (allowing multiple visits to vertices or edges) on the solution. We prove PSPACE-completeness for most of these games. Additionally, we analyze the complexity of related problems that have additional constraints on the solution.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2302_08420
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Complexity of Graph Exploration Games
Fuchs, Janosch
Grüne, Christoph
Janßen, Tom
Computational Complexity
Computer Science and Game Theory
F.2.2
Graph Exploration problems ask a searcher to explore an unknown environment. The environment is modeled as a graph, where the searcher needs to visit each vertex beginning at some vertex. Treasure Hunt problems are a variation of Graph Exploration, in which the searcher needs to find a hidden treasure, which is located at a designated vertex. Usually these problems are modeled as online problems, and any online algorithm performs poorly because it has too little knowledge about the instance to react adequately to the requests of the adversary. Thus, the impact of a priori knowledge is of interest. One form of a priori knowledge is an unlabeled map, which is an isomorphic copy of the graph. We analyze Graph Exploration and Treasure Hunt problems with an unlabeled map that is provided to the searcher. For this, we formulate decision variants of both problems by interpreting the online problems as a game between the online algorithm (the searcher) and the adversary. The map, however, is not controllable by the adversary. The question is whether the searcher is able to explore the graph completely or find the treasure for all possible decisions of the adversary. We analyze these games in multiple settings, with and without costs on the edges, on directed and undirected graphs and with different constraints (allowing multiple visits to vertices or edges) on the solution. We prove PSPACE-completeness for most of these games. Additionally, we analyze the complexity of related problems that have additional constraints on the solution.
title The Complexity of Graph Exploration Games
topic Computational Complexity
Computer Science and Game Theory
F.2.2
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.08420