Exploration of Always $S$-Connected Temporal Graphs

Abstract

\emph{Temporal graphs} are a generalisation of (static) graphs, defined by a sequence of \emph{snapshots}, each a static graph defined over a common set of vertices. \emph{Exploration} problems are one of the most fundamental and most heavily studied problems on temporal graphs, asking if a set of $m$ agents can visit every vertex in the graph, with each agent only allowed to traverse a single edge per snapshot. In this paper, we introduce and study \emph{always $S$-connected} temporal graphs, a generalisation of always-connected temporal graphs where, rather than forming a single connected component in each snapshot, we have at most $|S|$ components, each defined by the connection to at least one vertex in the set $S$. We use the model of always $S$-connected temporal graphs to study \emph{subgraphs} of always-connected temporal graphs, with motivation coming from networks with a small number of ``choke-points'', such as rail networks, where all external traffic into a subnetwork comes from a limited number of external connections. We use this formulation as a tool for exploring always-connected temporal graphs admitting an \emph{$(r,b)$-division}, a partitioning of the vertex set into $r$ components, each of which is $S$-connected, where $|S|\le b$. We show that an always $S$-connected temporal graph with $m=|S|$ and an average degree of $\Delta$ can be explored by $m$ agents in $O(n^{3/2}{m}^2{\Delta }^{3/2}{\log }^{3/2}(n)++n{m}^3)$ snapshots. Using this result as a subroutine, we show that any always-connected temporal graph with treewidth at most $k$ can be explored by a single agent in $O\left(n^{4/3}{k}^{9/2}{\log }^{5/2}(n)\right)$ snapshots, improving on the current state-of-the-art for small values of $k$.