Shortest Longest-Path Graph Orientations

We consider a graph orientation problem that can be viewed as a generalization of Minimum Graph Coloring. Our problem takes as input an undirected graph \(G = (V, E)\) in which every edge \(\{u, v\} \in E\) has two (potentially different and not necessarily positive) weights representing the lengths of its two possible directions (u, v) and (v, u), and asks for an orientation, i.e., an assignment of a direction to each edge of G, such that the length of a longest simple directed path in the resulting directed graph is minimized. A longest path in a graph is not always a maximal path when some edges have negative lengths, so the problem has two variants depending on whether all simple directed paths or maximal simple directed paths only are taken into account in the definition. We prove that the problems are NP-hard to approximate even if restricted to subcubic planar graphs, and develop fast polynomial-time algorithms for both problem variants for three classes of graphs: path graphs, cycle graphs, and star graphs.