Towards the Recognition of Oriented Interval Graphs

Oriented interval graphs, a recent generalization of interval graphs introduced by Gutowski et al. [GD 2022], are intersection graphs of intervals, each of which is oriented either left or right. Such a representation defines a mixed intersection graph: overlapping intervals with the same orientation define a (directed) arc; nested intervals (irrespective of the orientations of the intervals) and overlapping intervals of opposite orientations define an (undirected) edge. An oriented interval representation of a mixed graph $G$ can be described combinatorially by the combination of (i) an orientation $\varphi \colon V(G) \to \{-1,1\}$ of all intervals, (ii) a clique ordering $\sigma$, and (iii) a set $E_\mathrm{cont} \subseteq E(G)$ of containment edges, which are represented by nested intervals. The non-trivial dependencies between these three ingredients make the recognition of oriented interval graphs a challenging problem. In this paper, we take steps towards a general recognition algorithm by studying how orientation, clique ordering, and containment edges influence and restrict each other. We characterize the orientations that are consistent with a given set of containment edges as well as the clique orderings that are consistent with a given orientation. Based on these characterizations, we give linear-time algorithms for two constrained versions of the recognition problem where, in addition to the mixed input graph $G$, either the set of containment edges $E_\mathrm{cont}$ or the orientation $\varphi$ is prescribed. This improves a quadratic-time algorithm of Gutowski et al. for the case that all vertices have the same orientation; an assumption that determines both the orientation and the containment edges. In particular, this also solves the recognition problem for oriented proper (or unit) interval graphs.