Component Order Connectivity in Directed Graphs

A directed graph D is semicomplete if for every pair x,y of vertices of D, there is at least one arc between x and y. Thus, a tournament is a semicomplete digraph. In the Directed Component Order Connectivity (DCOC) problem, given a digraph D = (V,A) and a pair of natural numbers k and 𝓁, we are to decide whether there is a subset X of V of size k such that the largest strong connectivity component in D-X has at most 𝓁 vertices. Note that DCOC reduces to the Directed Feedback Vertex Set problem for 𝓁 = 1. We study parameterized complexity of DCOC for general and semicomplete digraphs with the following parameters: k, 𝓁, 𝓁+k and n-𝓁. In particular, we prove that DCOC with parameter k on semicomplete digraphs can be solved in time O^*(2^(16k)) but not in time O^*(2^o(k)) unless the Exponential Time Hypothesis (ETH) fails. The upper bound O^*(2^(16k)) implies the upper bound O^*(2^(16(n-𝓁))) for the parameter n-𝓁. We complement the latter by showing that there is no algorithm of time complexity O^*(2^o(n-𝓁)) unless ETH fails. Finally, we improve (in dependency on 𝓁) the upper bound of Göke, Marx and Mnich (2019) for the time complexity of DCOC with parameter 𝓁+k on general digraphs from O^*(2^O(k𝓁 log (k𝓁))) to O^*(2^O(klog (k𝓁))). Note that Drange, Dregi and van 't Hof (2016) proved that even for the undirected version of DCOC on split graphs there is no algorithm of running time O^*(2^o(klog 𝓁)) unless ETH fails and it is a long-standing problem to decide whether Directed Feedback Vertex Set admits an algorithm of time complexity O^*(2^o(klog k)).