Distance problems within Helly graphs and $k$-Helly graphs

Abstract: The ball hypergraph of a graph $G$ is the family of balls of all possible centers and radii in $G$. It has Helly number at most $k$ if every subfamily of $k$-wise intersecting balls has a nonempty common intersection. A graph is $k$-Helly (or Helly, if $k=2$) if its ball hypergraph has Helly number at most $k$. We prove that a central vertex and all the medians in an $n$-vertex $m$-edge Helly graph can be computed w.h.p. in $\tilde{\cal O}(m\sqrt{n})$ time. Both results extend to a broader setting where we define a non-negative cost function over the vertex-set. For any fixed $k$, we also present an $\tilde{\cal O}(m\sqrt{kn})$-time randomized algorithm for radius computation within $k$-Helly graphs. If we relax the definition of Helly number (for what is sometimes called an "almost Helly-type" property in the literature), then our approach leads to an approximation algorithm for computing the radius with an additive one-sided error of at most some constant.