We show the existence of an exact mimicking network of k^O(log k) edges for minimum multicuts over a set of terminals in an undirected graph, where k is the total capacity of the terminals. Furthermore, if Small Set Expansion has an approximation algorithm with a ratio slightly better than Θ(log n), then a mimicking network of quasipolynomial size can be computed in polynomial time. As a consequence of the latter, several problems would have quasipolynomial kernels, including Edge Multiway Cut, Group Feedback Edge Set for an arbitrary group, 0-Extension for integer-weighted metrics, and Edge Multicut parameterized by the solution and the number of cut requests. The result works via a combination of the matroid-based irrelevant edge approach used in the kernel for s-Multiway Cut with a recursive decomposition and sparsification of the graph along sparse cuts. The main technical contribution is a matroid-based marking procedure that we can show will mark all non-irrelevant edges, assuming that the graph is sufficiently densely connected. The only part of the result that is not currently constructive and polynomial-time computable is the detection of such sparse cuts. This is the first progress on the kernelization of Multiway Cut problems since the kernel for s-Multiway Cut for constant value of s (Kratsch and Wahlström, FOCS 2012).
@InProceedings{wahlstrom:LIPIcs.ICALP.2020.101, author = {Wahlstr\"{o}m, Magnus}, title = {{On Quasipolynomial Multicut-Mimicking Networks and Kernelization of Multiway Cut Problems}}, booktitle = {47th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2020)}, pages = {101:1--101:14}, series = {Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)}, ISBN = {978-3-95977-138-2}, ISSN = {1868-8969}, year = {2020}, volume = {168}, editor = {Czumaj, Artur and Dawar, Anuj and Merelli, Emanuela}, publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik}, address = {Dagstuhl, Germany}, URL = {https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2020.101}, URN = {urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-125082}, doi = {10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2020.101}, annote = {Keywords: Multiway Cut, Kernelization, Small Set Expansion, Mimicking Networks} }
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