On the Price of Independence for Vertex Cover, Feedback Vertex Set and Odd Cycle Transversal∗ Konrad K. Dabrowski1 Department of Computer Science, Durham University, UK
[email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9515-6945 Matthew Johnson2 Department of Computer Science, Durham University, UK
[email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7295-2663 Giacomo Paesani Department of Computer Science, Durham University, UK
[email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2383-1339 Daniël Paulusma3 Department of Computer Science, Durham University, UK
[email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5945-9287 Viktor Zamaraev4 Department of Computer Science, Durham University, UK
[email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5755-4141 Abstract Let vc(G), fvs(G) and oct(G), respectively, denote the size of a minimum vertex cover, minimum feedback vertex set and minimum odd cycle transversal in a graph G. One can ask, when looking for these sets in a graph, how much bigger might they be if we require that they are independent; that is, what is the price of independence? If G has a vertex cover, feedback vertex set or odd cycle transversal that is an independent set, then we let ivc(G), ifvs(G) or ioct(G), respectively, denote the minimum size of such a set. Similar to a recent study on the price of connectivity (Hartinger et al. EuJC 2016), we investigate for which graphs H the values of ivc(G), ifvs(G) and ioct(G) are bounded in terms of vc(G), fvs(G) and oct(G), respectively, when the graph G belongs to the class of H-free graphs.