The computational complexity of multicut-like problems may vary significantly depending on whether the terminals are fixed or not. In this work we present a comprehensive study of this phenomenon in two types of cut problems in directed graphs: double cut and bicut. 1. Fixed-terminal edge-weighted double cut is known to be solvable efficiently. We show that fixed-terminal node-weighted double cut cannot be approximated to a factor smaller than 2 under the Unique Games Conjecture (UGC), and we also give a 2-approximation algorithm. For the global version of the problem, we prove an inapproximability bound of 3/2 under UGC. 2. Fixed-terminal edge-weighted bicut is known to have an approximability factor of 2 that is tight under UGC. We show that the global edge-weighted bicut is approximable to a factor strictly better than 2, and that the global node-weighted bicut cannot be approximated to a factor smaller than 3/2 under UGC. 3. In relation to these investigations, we also prove two results on undirected graphs which are of independent interest. First, we show NP-completeness and a tight inapproximability bound of 4/3 for the node-weighted 3-cut problem under UGC. Second, we show that for constant k, there exists an efficient algorithm to solve the minimum {s,t}-separating k-cut problem. Our techniques for the algorithms are combinatorial, based on LPs and based on the enumeration of approximate min-cuts. Our hardness results are based on combinatorial reductions and integrality gap instances.
@InProceedings{berczi_et_al:LIPIcs.APPROX-RANDOM.2017.2, author = {B\'{e}rczi, Krist\'{o}f and Chandrasekaran, Karthekeyan and Kir\'{a}ly, Tam\'{a}s and Lee, Euiwoong and Xu, Chao}, title = {{Global and Fixed-Terminal Cuts in Digraphs}}, booktitle = {Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2017)}, pages = {2:1--2:20}, series = {Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)}, ISBN = {978-3-95977-044-6}, ISSN = {1868-8969}, year = {2017}, volume = {81}, editor = {Jansen, Klaus and Rolim, Jos\'{e} D. P. and Williamson, David P. and Vempala, Santosh S.}, publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik}, address = {Dagstuhl, Germany}, URL = {https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX-RANDOM.2017.2}, URN = {urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-75511}, doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX-RANDOM.2017.2}, annote = {Keywords: Directed Graphs, Arborescence, Graph Cuts, Hardness of Approximation} }
Feedback for Dagstuhl Publishing