Minimum Reload Cost Cycle Cover in Complete Graphs

Abstract: The reload cost refers to the cost that occurs along a path on an edge-colored graph when it traverses an internal vertex between two edges of different colors. Galbiati et al.[1] introduced the Minimum Reload Cost Cycle Cover problem, which is to find a set of vertex-disjoint cycles spanning all vertices with minimum reload cost. They proved that this problem is strongly NP-hard and not approximable within $1/\epsilon$ for any $\epsilon > 0$ even when the number of colors is 2, the reload costs are symmetric and satisfy the triangle inequality. In this paper, we study this problem in complete graphs having equitable or nearly equitable 2-edge-colorings, which are edge-colorings with two colors such that for each vertex $v \in V(G)$, $||c_1(v)| -|c_2(v)|| \leq 1$ or $||c_1(v)| -|c_2(v)|| \leq 2$, respectively, where $c_i(v)$ is the set of edges with color $i$ that is incident to $v$. We prove that except possibly on complete graphs with fewer than 13 vertices, the minimum reload cost is zero on complete graphs with nearly equitable 2-edge-colorings by proving the existence of a monochromatic cycle cover. Furthermore, we provide a polynomial-time algorithm that constructs a monochromatic cycle cover in complete graphs with an equitable 2-edge-coloring except possibly in a complete graph with four vertices. Our algorithm also finds a monochromatic cycle cover in complete graphs with a nearly equitable 2-edge-coloring except some special cases.