On the Maximal Shortest Paths Cover Number

Abstract

A shortest path P of a graph G is maximal if P is not contained as a subpath in any other shortest path. A set S⊆V(G) is a maximal shortest paths cover if every maximal shortest path of G contains a vertex of S. The minimum cardinality of a maximal shortest paths cover is called the maximal shortest paths cover number and is denoted by ξ(G). We show that it is NP-hard to determine ξ(G). We establish a connection between ξ(G) and several other graph parameters. We present a linear time algorithm that computes exact value for ξ(T) of a tree T.