On the Approximability and Hardness of the Minimum Connected Dominating Set with Routing Cost Constraint

In the problem of minimum connected dominating set with routing cost constraint, we are given a graph $G=(V,E)$, and the goal is to find the smallest connected dominating set $D$ of $G$ such that, for any two non-adjacent vertices $u$ and $v$ in $G$, the number of internal nodes on the shortest path between $u$ and $v$ in the subgraph of $G$ induced by $D cup {u,v}$ is at most $alpha$ times that in $G$. For general graphs, the only known previous approximability result is an $O(log n)$-approximation algorithm ($n=|V|$) for $alpha = 1$ by Ding et al. For any constant $alpha > 1$, we give an $O(n^{1-frac{1}{alpha}}(log n)^{frac{1}{alpha}})$-approximation algorithm. When $alpha geq 5$, we give an $O(sqrt{n}log n)$-approximation algorithm. Finally, we prove that, when $alpha =2$, unless $NP subseteq DTIME(n^{polylog n})$, for any constant $epsilon > 0$, the problem admits no polynomial-time $2^{log^{1-epsilon}n}$-approximation algorithm, improving upon the $Omega(log n)$ bound by Du et al. (albeit under a stronger hardness assumption).