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Fast and Deterministic Approximations for k-Cut Quanrud, Kent k-cut multiplicative weight updates In an undirected graph, a k-cut is a set of edges whose removal breaks the graph into at least k connected components. The minimum weight k-cut can be computed in n^O(k) time, but when k is treated as part of the input, computing the minimum weight k-cut is NP-Hard [Goldschmidt and Hochbaum, 1994]. For poly(m,n,k)-time algorithms, the best possible approximation factor is essentially 2 under the small set expansion hypothesis [Manurangsi, 2017]. Saran and Vazirani [1995] showed that a (2 - 2/k)-approximately minimum weight k-cut can be computed via O(k) minimum cuts, which implies a O~(km) randomized running time via the nearly linear time randomized min-cut algorithm of Karger [2000]. Nagamochi and Kamidoi [2007] showed that a (2 - 2/k)-approximately minimum weight k-cut can be computed deterministically in O(mn + n^2 log n) time. These results prompt two basic questions. The first concerns the role of randomization. Is there a deterministic algorithm for 2-approximate k-cuts matching the randomized running time of O~(km)? The second question qualitatively compares minimum cut to 2-approximate minimum k-cut. Can 2-approximate k-cuts be computed as fast as the minimum cut - in O~(m) randomized time? We give a deterministic approximation algorithm that computes (2 + eps)-minimum k-cuts in O(m log^3 n / eps^2) time, via a (1 + eps)-approximation for an LP relaxation of k-cut. Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik Kent Quanrud 2019 Is Part Of LIPIcs, Volume 145, Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2019) InProceedings Text doc-type:ResearchArticle publishedVersion application/pdf doi:10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX-RANDOM.2019.23 urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-112388 https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.APPROX-RANDOM.2019.23 eng https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode