An Optimal Algorithm for Shortest Paths in Unweighted Disk Graphs

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Brewer, Bruce W., Wang, Haitao
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Brewer, Bruce W.
Wang, Haitao
author_facet Brewer, Bruce W.
Wang, Haitao
contents Given in the plane a set $S$ of $n$ points and a set of disks centered at these points, the disk graph $G(S)$ induced by these disks has vertex set $S$ and an edge between two vertices if their disks intersect. Note that the disks may have different radii. We consider the problem of computing shortest paths from a source point $s\in S$ to all vertices in $G(S)$ where the length of a path in $G(S)$ is defined as the number of edges in the path. The previously best algorithm solves the problem in $O(n\log^2 n)$ time. A lower bound of $Ω(n\log n)$ is also known for this problem under the algebraic decision tree model. In this paper, we present an $O(n\log n)$ time algorithm, which matches the lower bound and thus is optimal. Another virtue of our algorithm is that it is quite simple.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_05569
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle An Optimal Algorithm for Shortest Paths in Unweighted Disk Graphs
Brewer, Bruce W.
Wang, Haitao
Computational Geometry
Data Structures and Algorithms
Given in the plane a set $S$ of $n$ points and a set of disks centered at these points, the disk graph $G(S)$ induced by these disks has vertex set $S$ and an edge between two vertices if their disks intersect. Note that the disks may have different radii. We consider the problem of computing shortest paths from a source point $s\in S$ to all vertices in $G(S)$ where the length of a path in $G(S)$ is defined as the number of edges in the path. The previously best algorithm solves the problem in $O(n\log^2 n)$ time. A lower bound of $Ω(n\log n)$ is also known for this problem under the algebraic decision tree model. In this paper, we present an $O(n\log n)$ time algorithm, which matches the lower bound and thus is optimal. Another virtue of our algorithm is that it is quite simple.
title An Optimal Algorithm for Shortest Paths in Unweighted Disk Graphs
topic Computational Geometry
Data Structures and Algorithms
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.05569