Quasi-Polynomial Algorithms for Submodular Tree Orienteering and Other Directed Network Design Problems

We consider the following general network design problem on directed graphs. The input is an asymmetric metric $(V,c)$, root $r^{*}\in V$, monotone submodular function $f:2^V\rightarrow \mathbb{R}_+$ and budget $B$. The goal is to find an $r^{*}$-rooted arborescence $T$ of cost at most $B$ that maximizes $f(T)$. Our main result is a simple quasi-polynomial time $O(\frac{\log k}{\log\log k})$-approximation algorithm for this problem, where $k\le |V|$ is the number of vertices in an optimal solution. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first non-trivial approximation ratio for this problem. As a consequence we obtain an $O(\frac{\log^2 k}{\log\log k})$-approximation algorithm for directed (polymatroid) Steiner tree in quasi-polynomial time. We also extend our main result to a setting with additional length bounds at vertices, which leads to improved $O(\frac{\log^2 k}{\log\log k})$-approximation algorithms for the single-source buy-at-bulk and priority Steiner tree problems. For the usual directed Steiner tree problem, our result matches the best previous approximation ratio [GLL19]. Our algorithm has the advantage of being deterministic and faster: the runtime is $\exp(O(\log n\, \log^{1+ε} k))$. For polymatroid Steiner tree and single-source buy-at-bulk, our result improves prior approximation ratios by a logarithmic factor. For directed priority Steiner tree, our result seems to be the first non-trivial approximation ratio. All our approximation ratios are tight (up to constant factors) for quasi-polynomial algorithms.