On conflict-free cuts: Algorithms and complexity

One way to define the Matching Cut problem is: Given a graph G, is there an edge-cut M of G such that M is an independent set in the line graph of G? We propose the more general Conflict-Free Cut problem: Together with the graph G, we are given a so-called conflict graph $\hat{G}$ on the edges of G, and we ask for an edge-cutset M of G that is independent in $\hat{G}$. Since conflict-free settings are popular generalizations of classical optimization problems and Conflict-Free Cut was not considered in the literature so far, we start the study of the problem. We show that the problem is $\mathrm{NP}$-complete even when the maximum degree of G is 5 and $\hat{G}$ is 1-regular. The same reduction implies an exponential lower bound on the solvability based on the Exponential Time Hypothesis. We also give parameterized complexity results: We show that the problem is fixed-parameter tractable with the vertex cover number of G as a parameter, and we show $W\left[1\right]$-hardness even when G has a feedback vertex set of size one, and the clique cover number of $\hat{G}$ is the parameter. Since the clique cover number of $\hat{G}$ is an upper bound on the independence number of $\hat{G}$ and thus the solution size, this implies $W\left[1\right]$-hardness when parameterized by the cut size. We list polynomial-time solvable cases and interesting open problems. At last, we draw a connection to a symmetric variant of SAT.