Simple Paths and Cycles Avoiding Forbidden Paths

A graph with forbidden paths is a pair (G, F) where G is a graph and F is a subset of the set of paths in G. A simple path avoiding forbidden paths in (G, F) is a simple path in G such that each subpath is not in F. It is shown in [S. Szeider, Finding paths in graphs avoiding forbidden transitions, DAM 126] that the problem of deciding the existence of a simple path avoiding forbidden paths in a graph with forbidden paths is Np-complete even when the forbidden paths are restricted to be transitions, i.e., of length two. We give an exact exponential time algorithm that decides in O(2(n)n(2k+O(1))) time and O(n(k+O(1))) space whether there exists a simple path between two vertices of a given n-vertex graph where k is the length of the longest forbidden path. We also obtain an exact O(2(n) n(2k+O(1))) time and O(n(k+O(1))) space algorithm to check the existence of a Hamiltonian path avoiding forbidden paths and for the graphs with forbidden transitions an exact O * (2(n)) time and polynomial space algorithm to check the existence of a Hamiltonian cycle avoiding forbidden transitions. In the last section, we present a new sufficient condition for graphs to have a Hamiltonian cycle, which gives us some interesting corollaries for graphs with forbidden paths.