Computing the Helly Number, Radon Number and Rank in Cycle Convexity

Source abstract

In this paper, we investigate three fundamental convexity parameters of graphs under cycle convexity, namely the Helly number, Radon number, and rank. We first study the computational complexity of these parameters. For each of these parameters, we consider the associated threshold decision problem of determining whether the parameter of a given graph is at least a prescribed integer. We establish that all three problems are $\NP$-hard and $\W[1]$-hard when parameterized by the threshold. Moreover, we strengthen these results by showing that the $\NP$-hardness persists even when the input is restricted to planar graphs of maximum degree at most $6$. We also focus on the structural properties of connected graphs corresponding to extremal values of these parameters. In particular, we characterize the graph classes for which the three parameters attain the values $n-1$ and $n-2$, where $n$ is the order of $G$.