On the Small Quasi-kernel Conjecture—A Survey

  • Péter L. Erdős*
  • , Ervin Győri
  • , Tamás Róbert Mezei
  • , Nika Salia
  • , Mykhaylo Tyomkyn
  • *Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

An independent vertex subset S of the directed graph G is a kernel if the set of out-neighbors of S is V(G)\S. An independent vertex subset Q of G is a quasi-kernel if the union of the first and second out-neighbors contains V(G)\S as a subset. Deciding whether a directed graph has a kernel is an NP-hard problem. In stark contrast, each directed graph has quasi-kernel(s) and one can be found in linear time. In this article, we will survey the results on quasi-kernel and their connection with kernels. We will focus on the small quasi-kernel conjecture which states that if the graph has no vertex of zero in-degree, then there exists a quasi-kernel of size not larger than half of the order of the graph. The paper also contains new proofs and some new results as well. (A preliminary version of this survey was published as [8]).

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationLecture Notes in Computer Science
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Pages98-110
Number of pages13
DOIs
StatePublished - 2025

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science
Volume14620 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springrer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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