Succinct Data Structure for Path Graphs

Abstract: We consider the problem of designing a succinct data structure for {\it path graphs} (which are a proper subclass of chordal graphs and a proper superclass of interval graphs) on $n$ vertices while supporting degree, adjacency, and neighborhood queries efficiently. We provide the following two solutions for this problem: - an $n \log n+o(n \log n)$-bit succinct data structure that supports adjacency query in $O(\log n)$ time, neighborhood query in $O(d \log n)$ time and finally, degree query in $\min{O(\log² n), O(d \log n)}$ where $d$ is the degree of the queried vertex. - an $O(n \log² n)$-bit space-efficient data structure that supports adjacency and degree queries in $O(1)$ time, and the neighborhood query in $O(d)$ time where $d$ is the degree of the queried vertex. Central to our data structures is the usage of the classical heavy path decomposition by Sleator and Tarjan~\cite{ST}, followed by a careful bookkeeping using an orthogonal range search data structure using wavelet trees~\cite{Makinen2007} among others, which maybe of independent interest for designing succinct data structures for other graph classes.