The Satisfactory Partition Problem

Abstract: The Satisfactory Partition problem consists in deciding if the set of vertices of a given undirected graph can be partitioned into two nonempty parts such that each vertex has at least as many neighbours in its part as in the other part. This problem was introduced by Gerber and Kobler [European J. Oper. Res. 125 (2000) 283-291] and further studied by other authors, but its parameterized complexity remains open until now. It is known that the Satisfactory Partition problem, as well as a variant where the parts are required to be of the same cardinality, are NP-complete. We enhance our understanding of the problem from the viewpoint of parameterized complexity by showing that (1) the problem is FPT when parameterized by the neighbourhood diversity of the input graph, (2) it can be solved in $O(n^{8 {\tt cw}})$ where ${\tt cw}$ is the clique-width,(3) a generalized version of the problem is W[1]-hard when parameterized by the treewidth.