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Laman graphs are the minimally rigid graphs in the plane. We present two algorithms for recognizing planar Laman graphs. A simple algorithm with running time O(n^(3/2)) and a more complicated algorithm with running time O(n log^3 n) based on involved planar network flow algorithms. Both improve upon the previously fastest algorithm for general graphs by Gabow and Westermann [Algorithmica, 7(5-6):465 - 497, 1992] with running time O(n sqrt{n log n}).
To solve this problem we introduce two algorithms (with the running times stated above) that check whether for a directed planar graph G, disjoint sets S, T subseteq V(G), and a fixed k the following connectivity condition holds: for each vertex s in S there are k directed paths from s to T pairwise having only vertex s in common. This variant of connectivity seems interesting on its own.
@InProceedings{rollin_et_al:LIPIcs.ESA.2019.79,
author = {Rollin, Jonathan and Schlipf, Lena and Schulz, Andr\'{e}},
title = {{Recognizing Planar Laman Graphs}},
booktitle = {27th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2019)},
pages = {79:1--79:12},
series = {Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
ISBN = {978-3-95977-124-5},
ISSN = {1868-8969},
year = {2019},
volume = {144},
editor = {Bender, Michael A. and Svensson, Ola and Herman, Grzegorz},
publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
address = {Dagstuhl, Germany},
URL = {https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2019.79},
URN = {urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-112001},
doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2019.79},
annote = {Keywords: planar graphs, Laman graphs, network flow, connectivity}
}