VERTEX COVERS AND CONNECTED VERTEX COVERS

IN 3-CONNECTED GRAPHS
Toshimasa Watanabe, Satoshi Kajita and Kenji Onaga

Department of Circuits and Systems

Faculty of Engineering, Hiroshima University,
4-1, Kagamiyama I chome, Higashi-Hiroshima, 724 Japan

Abstract
A vertex cover of a graph G=(V,E) is a subset N of V

such that each element of E is incident upon some

element of N, where V and E are the sets of vertices
and of edges of G, respectively. A connected vertex
cover of a graph G is a vertex cover of G such that
the subgraph G[N] induced by N of G is connected.
The minimum vertex cover problem (VCP) is the
problem of finding a vertex cover of minimum
cardinality, and the minimum connected vertex
cover problem is similarly defined.
Time complexity analysis of these problems for
3-connected graphs are the main subject o f the
paper.

1. Introduction
cover of a graph G=(V,E) is a subset N
of V such that each element of E is incident upon
some element of N, where V and E are the sets of
vertices and of e d g e s of G , respectively. A
connected vertex cover of a graph G is a vertex
cover of G such that the subgraph G[N] induced by
N of G is a connected graph. The minimum vertex
cover problem (VCP for short) is the problem of
finding a vertex cover of minimum cardinality, and
the minimum connected vertex cover p r o b l e m
(CVCP for short) is similarly defined.
The minimum vertex cover problem is one of
basic problems in graph and combinatorial theory,
and various characterizations and algorithms have
been given. Concerning NP-completeness, VCP for
general graphs [2], planar graphs with maximum
vertex degree at most 3 [2], cubic planar graphs
[ l o ] , cubic regular planar 3-connected graph [8],
have been shown to be NP-complete. As for the
polynomial-time solvability of VCP, a minimum
vertex cover N can be obtained in O(IVI+IEI) time
for series-parallel graphs [1,6], in 0 (IV152) time
for bipartite graphs [4]. On the other hand, as for
NP-completeness of CVCP, CVCP for planar graph
with maximum vertex degree at most 4 has been
shown to be NP-complete [2]. NP-completeness of
C V C P for 3-connected planar graphs has been
obtained in [12]. As for the polynomial-time
solvability, [lo] showed that a minimum connected
vertex cover of a graph with maximum vertex
degree a t most 3 is polynomial-time solvable.
Time complexity analysis of VCP and CVCP for 3A vertex

connected graphs are the main subjects of the

paper. According to Tuttes theorem [8], any 3connected graph can be constructed from a wheel
by repeating edge addition and/or vertex splitting.
(Their definitions will be given later) A 3connected graph of Type I (Type 2, respectively) is
defined as the one constructed from a wheel by
repeating
only
edge
addition
(only vertex
splitting). The following results are obtained in the
present paper.
(1) CVCP is NP-complete even if G satisfies one of
the following:
(i) G is a 3-connected planar graph, or
(ii) G is of Type 1 .
(2) the problem of deciding whether a given 3connected graph is of Type 1 is NP-complete.
(3) CVCP for a planar graph G of Type 1 can be
solved in O(IVI) time.
(4) A minimum connected vertex cover of a 3connected graph G of Type 2 is characterized
by means of a rim (a certain largest cycle of
G defined in Section 2), and i t can be found
in O ( I V I + I E Ior
) O ( I V I ~time
) if a rim of G is
available or if G is planar, respectively.
(5) VCP is NP-complete even if G is of Type 1. If G
is of Type 1 then N is a minimum vertex
cover for G if and only if N is a minimum
connected vertex cover for G.
(6) Three approximation algorithms for VCP
with G restricted to Type 2 are proposed, and
experimental evaluation is given.

2.3-Connected Graphs
The c o n n e c t i v i t y K ( G ) of a graph G is the
minimum number of vertices whose deletion from G
disconnected it or result in a single vertex. A graph
G is called a k - c o n n e c t e d graph if K ( G ) > k . We
denote an elementary cycle of length n by C,. A
wheel of order n, 1123, is the graph obtained from a
cycle Cn by adding one new vertex vo and joining
v o to each vertex of Cn with an edge. We denote this
wheel by W n + l = K I + C n . We refer to Cn as the r i m ,
and to vo as the h u b of W,. The edges joining v o
and vertices of Cn are called the s p o k e s . F i g . l ( a )
shows a wheel W g . A graph G is a 3-connected
graph if and only if G is either a wheel or a graph
obtained from a wheel by repeating the following

(i) any non-leaf v has degree d T ( v ) = d G ( v ) ( 2 3 ,

and
(ii) E(G)-E(T) form a cycle containing all leaves
of T.
Hence identifying a rim of a nonplanar graph G of
Type 2 is equivalent to finding such a spanning
tree. Time complexity analysis of this problem is
u n d e r investigation.

operations 1 and/or 2 (Tutte's theorem[8]):

Operation 1: Join non-adjacent vertices U, v
with an edge.
(This operation is called an edge addition.)
Operation 2 (see Fig.1): For a vertex v with
d e g r e e t 4 , replace v with a pair of adjacent
vertices v', v", and join each vertex that was
adjacent to v to exactly one of v' and v", by
means an edge in such a way that both v' and v"
have d e g r e e t 3 .
(This operation is called a vertex splitting.)
Note that each of Operations 1 and 2 can break
planarity of graphs. A graph obtained from a wheel
by repeated application of only Operation I , (only
Operation 2, respectively) is called T y p e l ( T y p e 2)
(see Fig.2 (1). (2)). In particular, we call a graph of
Type 2 a q u a s i - w h e e l . If a quasi-wheel G is derived
from a wheel W n + l = K l + C n then Cn remains in G
and it is called a rim of G . Its vertex V is partitioned
into two sets VR and VT: V R = V ( C , ) and V T = V V where VT consists of vertices introduced by
vertex splittings. The induced subgraph G[VT] of G
is a tree and is called the inner tree. Vertices in VR
are called rim vertices and those in VT are called
inner vertices.

4. Minimum Connected Vertex Covers

of 3-Connected Graphs
4.1. General 3 - c o n n e c t e d g r a p h s .
F i r s t , a s for t h e c o n n e c t e d vertex c o v e r
problems, we can prove the following theorem.
Theorem 2[12]. CVCP is NP-complete even if G
is a planar 3-connected graph.
(The reduction is from VCP for connected cubic
planar graphs which is NP-complete [ l l ] . )
4.2. 3-Connected graphs of Type 1.
Suppose that we are given any connected graph
G with IVI=n. Construct a cycle Cn with V(Cn)=V and
a wheel W , + l = K 1 + C n , and then add all edges of G to
W n + 1 . Let H denote the resulting graph. Since
r n / 2 1 + l < n for any n t 3 and the equality holds only if
n=3, it is easy to see that G has a vertex cover N with
INl<k if and only if H has a vertex cover "=Nu[ v o )
with IN'l<k+l, where vo is the hub of W n + l . Thus we
obtain the following. (Note that N' i s also a
connected vertex cover of H.)

3. Type Detection Problem

An O(IVI+fEI) algorithm for deciding where a
given graph is 3-connected or not is proposed in
[ 5 ] . Suppose that G is a 3-connected graph. We
consider the problem of determing where G is of
Typel or 2. (Note that there is a 3-connected graph
which is neither Type 1 nor 2.) Concerning the
type deciding problem we obtain the following.

Lemma 1. Suppose that G is of Type 1. N is a

minimum vertex cover for G if and only if N u [ v o ] is
a minimum vertex cover for H, where vo is the hub
of G .

Theorem 1. The 'problem o f deciding wherher a

given 3-connected graph is of Type 1 or not is NPcomplete.
(The reduction for Type 1 detection is from the
Hamilton c y c l e problem f o r c u b i c p l a n a r 3connected graphs, which is NP-complete [3].)

Therefore we obtain the next theorem.

Theorem 3. CVCP is NP-complete even if G is of

Type 1.
(The reduction is from VCP for connected graphs
[31.)

Suppose that G is planar and of Type 1 . If we

denote the hub v o from G then it is shown that G-vo
is a series-parallel graph. (Note that there is an
U(IVI+IEI) algorithm for deciding whether a given
graph is a series-parallel or not [6].)
If G is planar and of Type 2 then any rim is the
boundary of some face of G . Therefore we obtain the
following proposition.

Proposition

1.

If

is

planar

then

VCP for a series-parallel graph can be solved in

O(IV1) time [7]. Therefore we obtain the following:

Theorem 4. CVCP for a planar graph G of Type

1 can be solved in O(IVI) time.
4.3. 3-Connected graphs of Type 2.
Suppose that G is a quasi-wheel. Let VR={ 1 ,... ...,r ]
(r23) and N=NcuVT, where
(2i I i<idr/21]
if r is even,
NE/
{2i I lsi<r(r-1)/21] U { vr] if r is odd.
W e obtain a theoretical characterization on
minimum connected vertex covers of quasi-wheels.

the

following can be done in 0 ( I V l 2 ) time:

(i) detecting whether G is of Type 1 or not;
(ii) detecting whether G is of Type 2 or not;
(iii) identifying a rim if any.
For a nonplanar graph G of Type 2, we can easily
prove the following proposition.

Theorem 5. If G is a quasi-wheel then N=NcuVT

is a minimum connected vertex cover for G .

Proposition 2. G is of Type 2 if and only if G

has a spannimg tree T such that

1018

Time complexity of the spoke-first-algorithm is

0 ( I V 1 3 / 2 ) . In the case of the rim-first-algorithm,
there are r ways of selecting minimum vertex
covers on C, if r is odd. Hence the maximum
matching algorithm is applied r times,and its time

For the case where G is a planar q u a s i - w h e e l ,

we obtain the following.

Theorem 6. Let G be a planar quasi-wheel. If a

rim is available then CVCP can be solved in 0 ( I V I )
time. If G is a planar graph none of whose rims is
known then CVCP can be solved in 0(IVI2) time.

complexity i s 0 ( I V 1 5 / 2 ) . Time complexity of the

hub-tree-first-algorithm

5. Minimum Vertex Covers

of 3-ConnectedCraphs
5.1. 3-connected graphs of Type 1.
The discussion given prior to Lemma 1 shows
that N is a minimum vertex cover for G of Type 1 if
and only if N' is a minimum connected vertex cover
for H. Hence the next theorem follows.

is 0 (lV13/2).

6. Experimental results and polynomial-time

solvability
Table. 1 shows some of our experimental results
given by three algorithms which are implemented
on SONY/NWS-1750 (CPU:68030,25MHz).
In our results, optimal solutions are given either
in
rim-first-algorithm
or
in
hub-tree-firstalgorithm. As for the polynomial-time solvability in
rather restricted graphs of Type, we have the
following result. Let N I (N2, respectively) be a

Theorem 7. VCP is NP-complete even if G is of

Type 1.
5.2. 3-Connected graphs of Type 2.
At this moment time complexity of VCP for
quasi-wheel i s still o p e n , a n d it is u n d e r
investigation. In this section we provide three
"approximation "
a 1g o r i t h m s , a n d
s h o w t h e ir
experimental results. Let G=(V,E) be a quasi-wheel
whose rim is available, where C denotes the rim of G
and IV(C)I=r. Their differences exist in choosing
vertices on the rim or on a subtree of the inner tree
of G. At least r r / 2 1 vertices have to be chosen in
oder to cover the rim C of G, and a minimum vertex
cover for a tree can be obtained in 0 ( I V ' 1 3 / 2 ) time
by means of the well-known maximum matching
algorithm for bipartite graphs [4], where V' is the
vertex set of this tree. Three approximation
algorithms to be proposed are as follows.
(1) S p o k e - f i r s t - a l g o r i t h m
l o Delete all the edges on C.
2O Find a minimum vertex cover NC of the
r e s u l t i n g t r e e by using the m a x i m u m
matching algorithm.
3' Find a minimum vertex cover NR of the graph
G-Nc. [Note that G-NC is a collection of some
paths.]
4' Set N ~ N c u N R .
(2) R i m - f i r s t - a 1 g o r i t h m
1' Find a minimum cover RCVR of C.

vertex cover found by the hub-tree-first-algorithm

(by the rim-first-algorithm).

T h e o r e m 8 . Let G be a cubic planar quasiwheel in which the hub-tree is a path (see Fig.3). If
[ l N ~ l , l N 2 l J < r + lthen min[lN11,1N21) is the cardinality
of a minimum vertex cover of G , and N1, N2 can be
obtained in 0(IV15/2) time.

7. Concluding Remarks
We discussed time complexity analysis of the
minimum vertex cover and minimum connected
vertex c o v e r problems for 3-connected graphs.
Time complexity analysis of the minimum vertex
cover problem for quasi-wheel graphs and the Type
2 detection problem is left for future research.

Acknowledgements
The research of T.Watanabe is partly supported by
the Grant in Aid for Scientific Research of the
Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Japan
under
Grant:
(A)
02302047;
by
the
Telecommunications
Advancement
Foundation
(TAF), Tokyo, Japan: and by CSK Research Grant for
Information Communucation, Tokyo, Japan.

(called the hub tree) by using the maximum

matching algorithm.

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(4

Table 1. Some of experimental results on three

approximation algorithms. I VR I is the number
of vertices in the rim, and the other four columns
show the cardinality of a vertex cover found by
each algorithm, where each number in parenthesis,
say (2) in "s-first" column, denotes computation time,
2 sec. The "opt" column shows optimum cardinality
found by exhaustive search in order to compare
capabilities of these algorithms, where computation
time is not shown.

(b)

Fig. 1. The operation of a vertex splitting.

(a) A wheel W9 ; (b) A quasi -wheel.

Fig. 3. An example of a cubic planar quasi -wheel

G in which the inner tree is a path.

(1)

(2)

Fig. 2. (b) Examples of G of Type 1 and Type 2.

(1) Type 1, where bold lines are added edges;
(2) Type 2, where bold lines denote the inner tree.

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