Directed Width Measures and Monotonicity of Directed Graph Searching

Abstract: We consider generalisations of tree width to directed graphs, that attracted much attention in the last fifteen years. About their relative strength with respect to "bounded width in one measure implies bounded width in the other" many problems remain unsolved. Only some results separating directed width measures are known. We give an almost complete picture of this relation. For this, we consider the cops and robber games characterising DAG-width and directed tree width (up to a constant factor). For DAG-width games, it is an open question whether the robber-monotonicity cost (the difference between the minimal numbers of cops capturing the robber in the general and in the monotone case) can be bounded by any function. Examples show that this function (if it exists) is at least $f(k) > 4k/3$ (Kreutzer, Ordyniak 2008). We approach a solution by defining weak monotonicity and showing that if $k$ cops win weakly monotonically, then $O(k^2)$ cops win monotonically. It follows that bounded Kelly-width implies bounded DAG-width, which has been open since the definition of Kelly-width by Hunter and Kreutzer in 2008. For directed tree width games we show that, unexpectedly, the cop-monotonicity cost (no cop revisits any vertex) is not bounded by any function. This separates directed tree width from D-width defined by Safari in 2005, refuting his conjecture.