Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gutowski, Grzegorz, Rams, Mikołaj
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.11773
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866908829521805312
author Gutowski, Grzegorz
Rams, Mikołaj
author_facet Gutowski, Grzegorz
Rams, Mikołaj
contents For a directed graph $G$, and a linear order $\ll$ on the vertices of $G$, we define backedge graph $G^\ll$ to be the undirected graph on the same vertex set with edge $\{u,w\}$ in $G^\ll$ if and only if $(u,w)$ is an arc in $G$ and $w \ll u$. The directed clique number of a directed graph $G$ is defined as the minimum size of the maximum clique in the backedge graph $G^\ll$ taken over all linear orders $\ll$ on the vertices of $G$. A natural computational problem is to decide for a given directed graph $G$ and a positive integer $t$, if the directed clique number of $G$ is at most $t$. This problem has polynomial algorithm for $t=1$ and is known to be \NP-complete for every fixed $t\ge3$, even for tournaments. In this note we prove that this problem is $Σ^\mathsf{P}_{2}$-complete when $t$ is given on the input.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_11773
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Note on the Complexity of Directed Clique
Gutowski, Grzegorz
Rams, Mikołaj
Computational Complexity
Combinatorics
For a directed graph $G$, and a linear order $\ll$ on the vertices of $G$, we define backedge graph $G^\ll$ to be the undirected graph on the same vertex set with edge $\{u,w\}$ in $G^\ll$ if and only if $(u,w)$ is an arc in $G$ and $w \ll u$. The directed clique number of a directed graph $G$ is defined as the minimum size of the maximum clique in the backedge graph $G^\ll$ taken over all linear orders $\ll$ on the vertices of $G$. A natural computational problem is to decide for a given directed graph $G$ and a positive integer $t$, if the directed clique number of $G$ is at most $t$. This problem has polynomial algorithm for $t=1$ and is known to be \NP-complete for every fixed $t\ge3$, even for tournaments. In this note we prove that this problem is $Σ^\mathsf{P}_{2}$-complete when $t$ is given on the input.
title A Note on the Complexity of Directed Clique
topic Computational Complexity
Combinatorics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.11773