Kernels for (Connected) Dominating Set on Graphs with Excluded Topological Minors

Abstract

We give the first linear kernels for the Dominating Set and Connected Dominating Set problems on graphs excluding a fixed graph H as a topological minor. In other words, we prove the existence of polynomial time algorithms that, for a given H-topological-minor-free graph G and a positive integer k, output an H-topological-minor-free graph G′ on O(k) vertices such that G has a (connected) dominating set of size k if and only if G′ has one. Our results extend the known classes of graphs on which the Dominating Set and Connected Dominating Set problems admit linear kernels. Prior to our work, it was known that these problems admit linear kernels on graphs excluding a fixed apex graph H as a minor. Moreover, for Dominating Set, a kernel of size kc(H), where c(H) is a constant depending on the size of H, follows from a more general result on the kernelization of Dominating Set on graphs of bounded degeneracy. Alon and Gutner explicitly asked whether one can obtain a linear kernel for Dominating Set on H-minor-free graphs. We answer this question in the affirmative and in fact prove a more general result. For Connected Dominating Set no polynomial kernel even on H-minor-free graphs was known prior to our work. On the negative side, it is known that Connected Dominating Set on 2-degenerated graphs does not admit a polynomial kernel unless coNP ⊆ NP/poly.