Grundy Distinguishes Treewidth from Pathwidth Rémy Belmonte University of Electro-Communications, Chofu, Tokyo, 182-8585, Japan
[email protected] Eun Jung Kim Université Paris-Dauphine, PSL University, CNRS, LAMSADE, 75016, Paris, France
[email protected] Michael Lampis Université Paris-Dauphine, PSL University, CNRS, LAMSADE, 75016, Paris, France
[email protected] Valia Mitsou Université de Paris, IRIF, CNRS, 75205, Paris, France
[email protected] Yota Otachi Nagoya University, Nagoya, 464-8601, Japan
[email protected] Abstract Structural graph parameters, such as treewidth, pathwidth, and clique-width, are a central topic of study in parameterized complexity. A main aim of research in this area is to understand the “price of generality” of these widths: as we transition from more restrictive to more general notions, which are the problems that see their complexity status deteriorate from fixed-parameter tractable to intractable? This type of question is by now very well-studied, but, somewhat strikingly, the algorithmic frontier between the two (arguably) most central width notions, treewidth and pathwidth, is still not understood: currently, no natural graph problem is known to be W-hard for one but FPT for the other. Indeed, a surprising development of the last few years has been the observation that for many of the most paradigmatic problems, their complexities for the two parameters actually coincide exactly, despite the fact that treewidth is a much more general parameter. It would thus appear that the extra generality of treewidth over pathwidth often comes “for free”. Our main contribution in this paper is to uncover the first natural example where this generality comes with a high price.