On the parameterized complexity of Broadcast Independence and Broadcast Packing

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Dumont, Joanne, Nemery, Edouard, Perez, Anthony, Sikora, Florian
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Dumont, Joanne
Nemery, Edouard
Perez, Anthony
Sikora, Florian
author_facet Dumont, Joanne
Nemery, Edouard
Perez, Anthony
Sikora, Florian
contents A broadcast on a connected graph is a function f that assigns each vertex v an integer f(v) with 0 <= f(v) <= ecc(v) where ecc(v) denotes the eccentricity of v. A vertex u hears a broadcasting vertex v (with f(v)>0) if u is at distance at most f(v) from v. Beyond the classical broadcast domination problem, where every vertex is required to hear at least one vertex, two variants raise intriguing combinatorial and algorithmic questions. In an independent broadcast, no broadcasting vertex hears another broadcasting vertex, while a broadcast packing requires that every vertex hears at most one broadcasting vertex. The corresponding problems Broadcast Independence and Broadcast Packing ask for broadcasts of values at least k under these constraints, where the value is the sum of the broadcast values. We initiate a systematic study of the parameterized complexity of such problems. We prove that Broadcast Independence and Broadcast Packing are FPT parameterized by the treewidth plus the diameter of G, with a family of dynamic-programming algorithms over nice tree decompositions. We obtain as a corollary that both problems are FPT parameterized by k and the treewidth of G and XP for treewidth only. The latter result shows that the known algorithm for trees (Bessy and Rautenbach, DAM 2022) can indeed be extended to bounded treewidth graphs. On the negative side, we show that Broadcast Independence is W[1]-hard parameterized by the pathwidth of G. Note that this result completes the picture for parameter k and treewidth for Broadcast Independence since it is known to be W[1]-hard for k only. We complement these results by showing that a weighted version of both problems, where the input comes with a weight function on the edges, is W[1]-hard parameterized by the vertex cover of G. Finally, we provide a constant-factor approximation algorithm parameterized by treewidth for Broadcast Independence.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_16001
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle On the parameterized complexity of Broadcast Independence and Broadcast Packing
Dumont, Joanne
Nemery, Edouard
Perez, Anthony
Sikora, Florian
Data Structures and Algorithms
Computational Complexity
Discrete Mathematics
A broadcast on a connected graph is a function f that assigns each vertex v an integer f(v) with 0 <= f(v) <= ecc(v) where ecc(v) denotes the eccentricity of v. A vertex u hears a broadcasting vertex v (with f(v)>0) if u is at distance at most f(v) from v. Beyond the classical broadcast domination problem, where every vertex is required to hear at least one vertex, two variants raise intriguing combinatorial and algorithmic questions. In an independent broadcast, no broadcasting vertex hears another broadcasting vertex, while a broadcast packing requires that every vertex hears at most one broadcasting vertex. The corresponding problems Broadcast Independence and Broadcast Packing ask for broadcasts of values at least k under these constraints, where the value is the sum of the broadcast values. We initiate a systematic study of the parameterized complexity of such problems. We prove that Broadcast Independence and Broadcast Packing are FPT parameterized by the treewidth plus the diameter of G, with a family of dynamic-programming algorithms over nice tree decompositions. We obtain as a corollary that both problems are FPT parameterized by k and the treewidth of G and XP for treewidth only. The latter result shows that the known algorithm for trees (Bessy and Rautenbach, DAM 2022) can indeed be extended to bounded treewidth graphs. On the negative side, we show that Broadcast Independence is W[1]-hard parameterized by the pathwidth of G. Note that this result completes the picture for parameter k and treewidth for Broadcast Independence since it is known to be W[1]-hard for k only. We complement these results by showing that a weighted version of both problems, where the input comes with a weight function on the edges, is W[1]-hard parameterized by the vertex cover of G. Finally, we provide a constant-factor approximation algorithm parameterized by treewidth for Broadcast Independence.
title On the parameterized complexity of Broadcast Independence and Broadcast Packing
topic Data Structures and Algorithms
Computational Complexity
Discrete Mathematics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.16001