VOCAL 2024
Abstract Submission

79. Directed k-way Cut and Sparsest Set in Bipartite Graphs

Invited abstract in session TE-2: Network Optimization, stream Discrete Optimization.

Thursday, 16:45 - 18:15
Room: C 103

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Daniel Szabo
Mathematics, Eötvös Loránd University
2. Tamás Király
Eötvös Loránd University

Abstract

Given an edge weighted undirected graph G=(V,E), the k-way cut problem asks to find a minimum weight subset C of E such that G\C has k connected components. We extend this problem to directed graphs by requiring that G\C have k distinct vertices of which none can reach any other. This is a natural extension of the global bicut problem, which admits a less than 2-approximation yet there is a no known hardness result. Very little is known about the directed k-way cut problem, so we show NP hardness by reducing from the hardness of finding the sparsest set in bipartite graphs. This problem asks, given a bipartite graph G=(A,B;E), to find a set of max{|A|,|B|}+1 vertices with the minimum number of edges between them. We explore hardness of approximation as well as positive results for both of these problems.

Keywords

Status: accepted


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