Recognizing Weighted Disk Contact Graphs

Disk contact representations realize graphs by mapping vertices bijectively to interior-disjoint disks in the plane such that two disks touch each other if and only if the corresponding vertices are adjacent in the graph. Deciding whether a vertex-weighted planar graph can be realized such that the disks' radii coincide with the vertex weights is known to be $$\\textsf {NP}$$-hard. In this work, we reduce the gap between hardness and tractability by analyzing the problem for special graph classes. We show that it remains $$\\textsf {NP}$$-hard for outerplanar graphs with unit weights and for stars with arbitrary weights, strengthening the previous hardness results. On the positive side, we present constructive linear-time recognition algorithms for caterpillars with unit weights and for embedded stars with arbitrary weights.