On Computing Longest Paths in Small Graph Classes

The longest path problem is to find a longest path in a given graph. While the graph classes in which the Hamiltonian path problem can be solved efficiently are widely investigated, few graph classes are known to be solved efficiently for the longest path problem. For a tree, a simple linear time algorithm for the longest path problem is known. We first generalize the algorithm, and show that the longest path problem can be solved efficiently for weighted trees, block graphs, and cacti. We next show that the longest path problem can be solved efficiently on some graph classes that have natural interval representations.