Searching Posets: from dichotomy to the golden ratio
Résumé
Searching a sorted array is a very classical textbook problem. In some
special circumstances, such as searching a regression in a version control
system, it is necessary to search in a partially ordered set. The problem
can then be seen as trying to identify a faulty vertex in a directed acyclic
graph where each step consists in querying a vertex and asking whether
the searched vertex is an ancestor of the current vertex. Though the
problem is known to be NP-complete in general, we put more focus
on the more interesting setting when the indegree of each vertex is
bounded, and in particular when it is bounded by two. We show that
with the degree 2 restrictions, all directed acyclic graphs on n vertices
can be searched in no more than logφ(n) + 1 queries, where φ stands
for the golden ratio. On the other hand, we also show that there exists
directed trees which require at least ⌈logφ(n)⌉ − 2 queries. Expectedly,
the later proof expectedly involves Fibonnaci related trees. We will also
discuss how the NP-completeness proof of the problem can be extended
to this setting.
Based on joint work with Julien Courtiel and Romain Lecoq