Polynomial planar directed grid theorem

Abstract

The grid theorem, originally proved by Robertson and Seymour in 1986 [RS10, Graph Minors V], is one of the most central results in the study of graph minors and has found many algorithmic applications, especially in the analysis of routing problems. The relation between treewidth and grid minors is particularly tight for planar graphs, as every planar graph of treewidth at least 6k contains a grid of order k as a minor [RST94]. This polynomial, in fact linear, bound on the size of grid minors has enabled many important consequences, such as sublinear separators and subexponential algorithms for many NP-hard problems on planar graphs. In the mid-90s, Reed and Johnson, Robertson, Seymour and Thomas proposed a notion of directed treewidth and conjectured an excluded grid theorem for directed graphs. This theorem was proved in 2015 [KK15] by the latter two authors but the function relating directed treewidth and grid minors is very big, even in the planar case. Directed grids have found several algorithmic applications such as low-congestion routing. See e.g. [CE15, CEP16, KKK14, EMW16, AKKW16]. However, in the undirected case the polynomial, in fact linear, bound on the size of grid minors in planar graphs have made this tool so extremely successful. Consequently, the lack of polynomial bounds for directed grid minors in planar digraphs has so far prevented further applications of this technique in the directed setting. The main result of this paper is to close this gap and to establish a polynomial bound for the directed grid theorem on planar digraphs. We are optimistic that this will enable further applications of directed treewidth and its dual notion of directed grids in the context of planar digraphs. Towards the end, we also give “treewidth sparsifier” for directed graphs, which has been already considered in undirected graphs. This result allows us to obtain an Eulerian subgraph of bounded degree in D that still has high directed treewidth. We believe this result is of independent interest for structural graph theory.