Given a vertex-weighted directed graph G = (V, E) and a set T = {t 1 ,t 2 , . . .t k } of k terminals, the objective of the STRONGLY CONNECTED STEINER SUBGRAPH (SCSS) problem is to find a vertex set H ⊆ V of minimum weight such that G[H] contains a t i → t j path for each i = j. The problem is NP-hard, but Feldman and Ruhl [FOCS '99; SICOMP '06] gave a novel n O(k) algorithm for the SCSS problem, where n is the number of vertices in the graph and k is the number of terminals. We explore how much easier the problem becomes on planar directed graphs.• Feldman and Ruhl generalized their n O(k) algorithm to the more general DIRECTED STEINER NETWORK (DSN) problem; here the task is to find a subgraph of minimum weight such that for every source s i there is a path to the corresponding terminal t i . We show that, assuming ETH, there is no f (k) · n o(k) time algorithm for DSN on acyclic planar graphs.All our lower bounds hold for the edge-unweighted version, while the algorithm works for the more general vertex-(un)weighted version.
IntroductionThe STEINER TREE (ST) problem is one of the earliest and most fundamental problems in combinatorial optimization: given an undirected graph G = (V, E) and a set T ⊆ V of terminals, the objective is to find a tree of minimum size which connects all the terminals. The ST problem is believed to have been first formally defined by Gauss in a letter in 1836, and the first combinatorial formulation is attributed independently to Hakimi [43] and Levin [52] in 1971. The ST problem is known to be NP-complete, and was in fact part of Karp's original list [49] of 21 NP-complete problems. In the directed version of the ST problem, called DIRECTED STEINER TREE (DST), we are also given a root vertex r and the objective is to find a minimum size arborescence which connects the root r to each terminal from T . An easy reduction from SET COVER shows that the DST problem is also NP-complete.Steiner-type problems arise in the design of networks. Since many networks are symmetric, the directed versions of Steiner-type problems were mostly of theoretical interest. However, in recent years, it has been observed [65, 67] that the connection cost in various networks such as satellite or radio networks are not symmetric. Therefore, directed graphs form the most suitable model for such networks. In addition, Ramanathan [65] also used the DST problem to find low-cost multicast trees, which have applications in point-to-multipoint communication in high bandwidth networks. We refer the interested reader to Winter [69] for a survey on applications of Steiner problems in networks.In this paper we consider two well-studied Steiner-type problems in directed graphs, namely the STRONGLY CONNECTED STEINER SUBGRAPH and the DIRECTED STEINER NETWORK problems. In the (vertex-unweighted) STRONGLY CONNECTED STEINER SUBGRAPH (SCSS) problem, given a directed graph G = (V, E) and a set T = {t 1 ,t 2 , . . . ,t k } of k terminals, the objective is to find a set S ⊆ V of minimum size such that G[S] contains a t i → t j path...