Three results towards the approximation of special maximum matchings in graphs

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Mkrtchyan, Vahan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866912348166422528
author Mkrtchyan, Vahan
author_facet Mkrtchyan, Vahan
contents For a graph $G$ define the parameters $\ell(G)$ and $L(G)$ as the minimum and maximum value of $ν(G\backslash F)$, where $F$ is a maximum matching of $G$ and $ν(G)$ is the matching number of $G$. In this paper, we show that there is a small constant $c>0$, such that the following decision problem is NP-complete: given a graph $G$ and $k\leq \frac{|V|}{2}$, check whether there is a maximum matching $F$ in $G$, such that $|ν(G\backslash F)-k|\leq c\cdot |V|$. Note that when $c=1$, this problem is polynomial time solvable as we observe in the paper. Since in any graph $G$, we have $L(G)\leq 2\ell(G)$, any polynomial time algorithm constructing a maximum matching of a graph is a 2-approximation algorithm for $\ell(G)$ and $\frac{1}{2}$-approximation algorithm for $L(G)$. We complement these observations by presenting two inapproximability results for $\ell(G)$ and $L(G)$.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_16324
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Three results towards the approximation of special maximum matchings in graphs
Mkrtchyan, Vahan
Combinatorics
05C85, 68R10, 05C70, 05C15
For a graph $G$ define the parameters $\ell(G)$ and $L(G)$ as the minimum and maximum value of $ν(G\backslash F)$, where $F$ is a maximum matching of $G$ and $ν(G)$ is the matching number of $G$. In this paper, we show that there is a small constant $c>0$, such that the following decision problem is NP-complete: given a graph $G$ and $k\leq \frac{|V|}{2}$, check whether there is a maximum matching $F$ in $G$, such that $|ν(G\backslash F)-k|\leq c\cdot |V|$. Note that when $c=1$, this problem is polynomial time solvable as we observe in the paper. Since in any graph $G$, we have $L(G)\leq 2\ell(G)$, any polynomial time algorithm constructing a maximum matching of a graph is a 2-approximation algorithm for $\ell(G)$ and $\frac{1}{2}$-approximation algorithm for $L(G)$. We complement these observations by presenting two inapproximability results for $\ell(G)$ and $L(G)$.
title Three results towards the approximation of special maximum matchings in graphs
topic Combinatorics
05C85, 68R10, 05C70, 05C15
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.16324