Complexity of (arc)-connectivity problems involving arc-reversals or deorientations

Abstract: By a well known theorem of Robbins, a graph $G$ has a strongly connected orientation if and only if $G$ is 2-edge-connected and it is easy to find, in linear time, either a cut edge of $G$ or a strong orientation of $G$. A result of Durand de Gevigny shows that for every $k\geq 3$ it is NP-hard to decide if a given graph $G$ has a $k$-strong orientation. Thomassen showed that one can check in polynomial time whether a given graph has a 2-strong orientation. This implies that for a given digraph $D$ we can determine in polynomial time whether we can reorient (=reverse) some arcs of $D=(V,A)$ to obtain a 2-strong digraph $D'=(V,A')$. This naturally leads to the question of determining the minimum number of such arcs to reverse before the resulting graph is 2-strong. In this paper we show that finding this number is NP-hard. If a 2-connected graph $G$ has no 2-strong orientation, we may ask how many of its edges we may orient so that the resulting mixed graph is still 2-strong. Similarly, we may ask for a 2-edge-connected graph $G$ how many of its edges we can orient such that the resulting mixed graph remains 2-arc-strong. We prove that when restricted to graphs satisfying suitable connectivity conditions, both of these problems are equivalent to finding the minimum number of edges we must double in a 2-edge-connected graph in order to obtain a 4-edge-connected graph. Using this, we show that all these three problems are NP-hard. Finally, we consider the operation of deorienting an arc $uv$ of a digraph $D$ meaning replacing it by an undirected edge between the same vertices. In terms of connectivity properties, this is equivalent to adding the opposite arc $vu$ to $D$. We prove that for every $\ell\geq 3$ it is NP-hard to find the minimum number of arcs to deorient in a digraph $D$ in order to obtain an $\ell$-strong digraph $D'$.