Broadcast Graph Is NP-complete

Abstract

The broadcast model is widely used to describe the process of information dissemination from a single node to all nodes within an interconnected network. In this model, a graph represents the network, where vertices correspond to nodes and edges to communication links. The efficiency of this broadcasting process is evaluated by the broadcast time, the minimum discrete time units required to broadcast from a given vertex. Determining the broadcast time is referred to as the problem Broadcast Time. The set of vertices with the minimum broadcast time among the graph is called the broadcast center. Identifying this center or determining its size are both proven to be NP-hard. For a graph with n vertices, the minimum broadcast time is at least ceil(log2 n). The Broadcast Graph problem asks in a graph of n vertices, whether the broadcast time from any vertex equals ceil(log2 n). Extensive research over the past 50 years has focused on constructing broadcast graphs, which are optimal network topologies for one-to-all communication efficiency. However, the computational complexity of the Broadcast Graph problem has rarely been the subject of study. We believe that the difficulty lies in the mapping reduction for an NP-completeness proof. Consequently, we must construct broadcast graphs for yes-instances and non-broadcast graphs for no-instances. The most closely related result is the NP-completeness of Broadcast Time proved by Slater et al. in 1981. More recently, Fomin et al. has proved that Broadcast Time is fixed-parameter tractable. In this paper, we prove that Broadcast Graph is NP-complete by proving a reduction from Broadcast Time. We also improve the results on the complexity of the broadcast center problem. We show Broadcast Center Size is in delta^2_p, and is DP-hard, implying a complexity upper bound of delta^2_p-complete and a lower bound of DP-hard.