b-articulation points and b-bridges in strongly biconnected directed graphs

Abstract

A directed graph $G=(V,E)$ is called strongly biconnected if $G$ is strongly connected and the underlying graph of $G$ is biconnected. This class of directed graphs was first introduced by Wu and Grumbach. Let $G=(V,E)$ be a strongly biconnected directed graph. An edge $e\in E$ is a b-bridge if the subgraph $G\setminus \left\lbrace e\right\rbrace =(V,E\setminus \left\lbrace e\right\rbrace) $ is not strongly biconnected. A vertex $w\in V$ is a b-articulation point if $G\setminus \left\lbrace w\right\rbrace$ is not strongly biconnected, where $G\setminus \left\lbrace w\right\rbrace$ is the subgraph obtained from $G$ by removing $w$. In this paper we study b-articulation points and b-bridges.