Strongly Connected Spanning Subgraph for Almost Symmetric Networks

Abstract

In the strongly connected spanning subgraph ([Formula: see text]) problem, the goal is to find a minimum weight spanning subgraph of a strongly connected directed graph that maintains the strong connectivity. In this paper, we consider the [Formula: see text] problem for two families of geometric directed graphs; [Formula: see text]-spanners and symmetric disk graphs. Given a constant [Formula: see text], a directed graph [Formula: see text] is a [Formula: see text]-spanner of a set of points [Formula: see text] if, for every two points [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] in [Formula: see text], there exists a directed path from [Formula: see text] to [Formula: see text] in [Formula: see text] of length at most [Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text] is the Euclidean distance between [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]. Given a set [Formula: see text] of points in the plane such that each point [Formula: see text] has a radius [Formula: see text], the symmetric disk graph of [Formula: see text] is a directed graph [Formula: see text], such that [Formula: see text]. Thus, if there exists a directed edge [Formula: see text], then [Formula: see text] exists as well. We present [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] approximation algorithms for the [Formula: see text] problem for [Formula: see text]-spanners and for symmetric disk graphs, respectively. Actually, our approach achieves a [Formula: see text]-approximation algorithm for all directed graphs satisfying the property that, for every two nodes [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], the ratio between the shortest paths, from [Formula: see text] to [Formula: see text] and from [Formula: see text] to [Formula: see text] in the graph, is at most [Formula: see text].