English

Multipacking on graphs and Euclidean metric space

Discrete Mathematics 2026-02-10 v1

Abstract

A \emph{multipacking} in an undirected graph G=(V,E)G=(V,E) is a set MVM\subseteq V such that for every vertex vVv\in V and for every integer r1r\geq 1, the ball of radius r r around v v contains at most rr vertices of MM. The \textsc{Multipacking} problem asks whether a graph contains a multipacking of size at least kk. For more than a decade, it remained open whether \textsc{Multipacking} is \textsc{NP-complete} or polynomial-time solvable, although it is known to be polynomial-time solvable for some classes (e.g., strongly chordal graphs and grids). Foucaud, Gras, Perez, and Sikora [\textit{Algorithmica} 2021] showed it is \textsc{NP-complete} for directed graphs and \textsc{W[1]-hard} when parameterized by the solution size. We resolve the open question by proving \textsc{Multipacking} is \textsc{NP-complete} for undirected graphs and \textsc{W[2]-hard} when parameterized by the solution size. Furthermore, we show it remains \textsc{NP-complete} and \textsc{W[2]-hard} even for chordal, bipartite, claw-free, regular, CONV, and chordal12\cap\frac{1}{2}-hyperbolic graphs (a superclass of strongly chordal graphs), and we provide approximation algorithms for cactus, chordal, and δ\delta-hyperbolic graphs. Moreover, we study the relationship between multipacking number and broadcast domination number for cactus, chordal, and δ\delta-hyperbolic graphs. Further, we prove that for all r2r\geq 2, \textsc{rr-Multipacking} is \textsc{NP-complete} even for planar bipartite graphs with bounded degree, and also for bounded-diameter chordal and bounded-diameter bipartite graphs. For geometric variants, in R2\mathbb{R}^2 a maximum 11-multipacking can be computed in polynomial time, but computing a maximum 22-multipacking is \textsc{NP-hard}, and we provide approximation and parameterized algorithms for the 22-multipacking problem.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.07927,
  title  = {Multipacking on graphs and Euclidean metric space},
  author = {Sk Samim Islam},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.07927},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

Doctoral Thesis

R2 v1 2026-07-01T10:26:39.857Z