Parameterized Algorithms for Covering by Arithmetic Progressions

Ivan Bliznets, Jesper Nederlof, Krisztina Szilágyi

Abstract: An arithmetic progression is a sequence of integers in which the difference between any two consecutive elements is the same. We investigate the parameterized complexity of two problems related to arithmetic progressions, called Cover by Arithmetic Progressions (CAP) and Exact Cover by Arithmetic Progressions (XCAP). In both problems, we are given a set X consisting of n integers along with an integer k, and our goal is to find k arithmetic progressions whose union is X. In XCAP we additionally require the arithmetic progressions to be disjoint. Both problems were shown to be NP-complete by Heath [IPL’90].