Online Dominating Set and Coloring for Geometric Intersection Graphs

Abstract

We present online deterministic algorithms for minimum coloring and minimum dominating set problems in the context of geometric intersection graphs. We consider a graph parameter: the independent kissing number $\zeta$, which is a number equal to `the size of the largest induced star in the graph $-1$'. For a graph with an independent kissing number at most $\zeta$, we show that the famous greedy algorithm achieves an optimal competitive ratio of $\zeta$ for the minimum dominating set and the minimum independent dominating set problems. However, for the minimum connected dominating set problem, we obtain a competitive ratio of at most $2\zeta$. To complement this, we prove that for the minimum connected dominating set problem, any deterministic online algorithm has a competitive ratio of at least $2(\zeta-1)$ for the geometric intersection graph of translates of a convex object in $\mathbb{R}^2$. Next, for the minimum coloring problem, we obtain algorithms having a competitive ratio of $O\left({\zeta'}{\log m}\right)$ for geometric intersection graphs of bounded scaled $\alpha$-fat objects in $\mathbb{R}^d$ having widths in the interval $[1,m]$, where $\zeta'$ is the independent kissing number of the geometric intersection graph of bounded scaled $\alpha$-fat objects having widths in the interval $[1,2]$. Finally, we investigate the value of $\zeta$ for geometric intersection graphs of various families of geometric objects.