Sequentially swapping colored tokens on graphs

Abstract

We consider a puzzle consisting of colored tokens on an nvertex graph, where each token has a distinct starting vertex and a set of allowable target vertices for it to reach, and the only allowed transformation is to “sequentially” move the chosen token along a path of the graph by swapping it with other tokens on the path. This puzzle is a variation of the Fifteen Puzzle and is solvable in O(n3) token-swappings. We thus focus on the problem of minimizing the number of token-swappings to reach the target token-placement. We first give an inapproximability result of this problem, and then show polynomial-time algorithms on trees, complete graphs, and cycles.