On exact solutions to the Euclidean bottleneck Steiner tree problem

We study the Euclidean bottleneck Steiner tree problem: given a set P of n points in the Euclidean plane and a positive integer k, find a Steiner tree with at most k Steiner points such that the length of the longest edge in the tree is minimized. This problem is known to be NP-hard even to approximate within ratio and there was no known exact algorithm even for k=1 prior to this work. In this paper, we focus on finding exact solutions to the problem for a small constant k. Based on geometric properties of optimal location of Steiner points, we present an optimal -time exact algorithm for k=1 and an O(n2)-time algorithm for k=2. Also, we present an optimal -time exact algorithm for any constant k for a special case where there is no edge between Steiner points.