NP-completeness and an ILP formulation for the P3-convex domination problem

Anjan Gautam, Biswajit Deb, Pinaki Mitra, Puran Dangal

Abstract


A set S ⊆ V(G) of a graph G is called a P3-convex dominating set if it is a dominating set and for every path u − w − v of length two with u, v ∈ S, the vertex w belongs to S. The P3-convex domination number γ3c(G) is the cardinality of a minimum P3-convex dominating set (P3-CDS). In this paper, we present several foundational results concerning this parameter. First, we show that for any integers n ≥ 6 and 1 ≤ k ≤ n, there exists a graph G of order n such that γ3c(G) = k. We then show that the P3-CONVEX DOMINATING SET decision problem is NP-complete, even when restricted to bipartite graphs. Finally, we present an integer linear programming formulation for the P3-convex dominating set problem and prove that its optimal solutions correspond exactly to minimum P3-convex dominating sets.


Keywords


P3-convex domination; NP-completeness; integer linear programming

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5614/ejgta.2026.14.2.9

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