Minimum cost homomorphism dichotomy for oriented cycles

Abstract

For digraphs D and H, a mapping f: V(D) →V(H) is a homomorphism of D to H if uv∈ ∈A(D) implies f(u)f(v)∈ ∈A(H). If, moreover, each vertex u∈ ∈V(D) is associated with costs c i (u), i∈ ∈V(H), then the cost of the homomorphism f is ∈ u∈ ∈V(D) c f(u)(u). For each fixed digraph H, we have the minimum cost homomorphism problem for H (abbreviated MinHOM(H)). In this discrete optimization problem, we are to decide, for an input graph D with costs c i (u), u∈ ∈V(D), i∈ ∈V(H), whether there exists a homomorphism of D to H and, if one exists, to find one of minimum cost. We obtain a dichotomy classification for the time complexity of MinHOM(H) when H is an oriented cycle. We conjecture a dichotomy classification for all digraphs with possible loops. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.