Stable Set Reconfiguration in Dense Digraphs

Source abstract

In a directed graph, a stable (or acyclic) set is a set which does not induce a directed cycle. Given a directed graph and two acyclic sets of the same size, the Acyclic-Set-Reconfiguration with Directed Token Sliding (ASR) problem asks whether one can, by iteratively replacing a vertex by an adjacent one, transform the first set into the second one, while maintaining acyclicity during the transformation. In this work, we present a study of the complexity of ASR and provide an FPT algorithm for semi-complete digraphs, when parametrized by the size of the sets being reconfigured, the directed pathwidth (or equivalently, the directed treewidth) of the instance, and a newly introduced parameter called the iteration of the reconfiguration sequence. To the best of our knowledge, the reconfiguration of stable sets has only been studied on undirected graphs, or (more recently) on sparse directed graphs.