On the feedback vertex set problem for a planar graphÜber das Feedback-Vertex-Set-Problem für planare Graphen

An algorithm solving the feedback-vertex-set problem for planar digraphs is described. In particular, planar graphs with a certain additional condition are considered as they arise from solving systems of linear equations obtained from convection-dominated flow problems. The proposed algorithm requires a computational work linear in the size of the graph. Furthermore, a side-product is a decomposition of the graph into subsets that are of interest for block-Gauß-Seidel smoothers in multi-grid methods.