An edge-colored graph $G$ is {\em rainbow connected} if any two vertices are connected by a path whose edges have distinct colors. The {\em rainbow connectivity} of a connected graph $G$, denoted $rc(G)$, is the smallest number of colors that are needed in order to make $G$ rainbow connected. In addition to being a natural combinatorial problem, the rainbow connectivity problem is motivated by applications in cellular networks. In this paper we give the first proof that computing $rc(G)$ is NP-Hard. In fact, we prove that it is already NP-Complete to decide if $rc(G)=2$, and also that it is NP-Complete to decide whether a given edge-colored (with an unbounded number of colors) graph is rainbow connected. On the positive side, we prove that for every $\epsilon >0$, a connected graph with minimum degree at least $\epsilon n$ has bounded rainbow connectivity, where the bound depends only on $\epsilon$, and the corresponding coloring can be constructed in polynomial time. Additional non-trivial upper bounds, as well as open problems and conjectures are also presented.
@InProceedings{chakraborty_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2009.1811, author = {Chakraborty, Sourav and Fischer, Eldar and Matsliah, Arie and Yuster, Raphael}, title = {{Hardness and Algorithms for Rainbow Connectivity}}, booktitle = {26th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science}, pages = {243--254}, series = {Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)}, ISBN = {978-3-939897-09-5}, ISSN = {1868-8969}, year = {2009}, volume = {3}, editor = {Albers, Susanne and Marion, Jean-Yves}, publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik}, address = {Dagstuhl, Germany}, URL = {https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2009.1811}, URN = {urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-18115}, doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2009.1811}, annote = {Keywords: } }
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