Approximation of Pathwidth of Outerplanar Graphs

There exists a polynomial time algorithm to compute the pathwidth of outerplanar graphs [3], but the large exponent makes this algorithm impractical. In this paper, we give an algorithm, that given a biconnected outerplanar graph G, finds a path decomposition of G of pathwidth at most at most twice the pathwidth of G plus one. To obtain the result, several relations between the pathwidth of a biconnected outerplanar graph and its dual are established.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2001
• Where: WG
• Authors: Fedor V. Fomin, Hans L. Bodlaender
• Keywords: Biconnected Outerplanar Graph, Outerplanar Graph, Polynomial Time Algorithm, Theoretical Computer Science, WG 2001