Parameterized Complexity of Directed Steiner Tree on Sparse Graphs

We study the parameterized complexity of the directed variant of the classical Steiner Tree problem on various classes of directed sparse graphs. While the parameterized complexity of Steiner Tree parameterized by the number of terminals is well understood, not much is known about the parameterization by the number of non-terminals in the solution tree. All that is known for this parameterization is that both the directed and the undirected versions are W2-hard on general graphs, and hence unlikely to be fixed parameter tractable (FPT). The undirected Steiner Tree problem becomes FPT when restricted to sparse classes of graphs such as planar graphs, but the techniques used to show this result break down on directed planar graphs.