Fault-Tolerant Subgraph for Single-Source Reachability: General and Optimal

Let $G$ be a directed graph with $n$ vertices, $m$ edges, and a designated source vertex $s$. We address the problem of single-source reachability (SSR) from $s$ in the presence of failures of vertices/edges. We show that for every $k\geq1$, there is a subgraph $H$ of $G$ with at most $2^kn$ edges that preserves the reachability from $s$ even after the failure of any $k$ edges. Formally, given a set $F$ of $k$ edges, a vertex $v\in V(G)$ is reachable from $s$ in $G\setminus F$ if and only if $v$ is reachable from $s$ in $H\setminus F$. We call $H$ a $k$-fault tolerant reachability subgraph ($\textsc{$k$-FTRS}$). We also prove a matching lower bound of $\Omega(2^kn)$ edges for such subgraphs that holds for all $n,k$ with $2^k\leq n$. Our results extend to vertex failures without any extra overhead. The construction of ${$k$-FTRS}$ is interesting from several different perspectives. From the Graph theory perspective it reveals a separation between SSR and single-source shortest paths (SSSP) in directed grap...