Enumeration of minimal transversals of hypergraphs of bounded VC-dimension

Abstract: We consider the problem of enumerating all minimal transversals (also called minimal hitting sets) of a hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$. An equivalent formulation of this problem known as the \emph{transversal hypergraph} problem (or \emph{hypergraph dualization} problem) is to decide, given two hypergraphs, whether one corresponds to the set of minimal transversals of the other. The existence of a polynomial time algorithm to solve this problem is a long standing open question. In \cite{fredman_complexity_1996}, the authors present the first sub-exponential algorithm to solve the transversal hypergraph problem which runs in quasi-polynomial time, making it unlikely that the problem is (co)NP-complete. In this paper, we show that when one of the two hypergraphs is of bounded VC-dimension, the transversal hypergraph problem can be solved in polynomial time, or equivalently that if $\mathcal{H}$ is a hypergraph of bounded VC-dimension, then there exists an incremental polynomial time algorithm to enumerate its minimal transversals. This result generalizes most of the previously known polynomial cases in the literature since they almost all consider classes of hypergraphs of bounded VC-dimension. As a consequence, the hypergraph transversal problem is solvable in polynomial time for any class of hypergraphs closed under partial subhypergraphs. We also show that the proposed algorithm runs in quasi-polynomial time in general hypergraphs and runs in polynomial time if the conformality of the hypergraph is bounded, which is one of the few known polynomial cases where the VC-dimension is unbounded.