Exact Algorithms for L (2, 1)-Labeling of Graphs

The notion of distance constrained graph labelings, motivated by the Frequency Assignment Problem, reads as follows: A mapping from the vertex set of a graph G = (V,E) into an interval of integers [0..k] is an L(2, 1)-labeling of G of span k if any two adjacent vertices are mapped onto integers that are at least 2 apart, and every two vertices with a common neighbor are mapped onto distinct integers. It is known that for any fixed k = 4, deciding the existence of such a labeling is an NP-complete problem. We present exact exponential time algorithms that are faster than the naive O((k + 1)n) algorithm that would try all possible mappings. The improvement is best seen in the first NP-complete case of k = 4 - here the running time of our algorithm is O(1.3161n).