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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.5

Maximum-Flow and Minimum-Cut Sensitivity Oracles for Directed Graphs

Authors: Mridul Ahi, Keerti Choudhary, Shlok Pande, Pushpraj, and Lakshay Saggi

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 362, 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of designing fault-tolerant data structures for the (s,t)-max-flow and (s,t)-min-cut problems in unweighted directed graphs. Given a directed graph G = (V, E) with a designated source s, sink t, and an (s,t)-max-flow of value λ, we present constructions for max-flow and min-cut sensitivity oracles, and introduce the concept of a fault-tolerant flow family, which may be of independent interest. Our main contributions are as follows. 1) Fault-Tolerant Flow Family: We construct a family ℬ of 2λ+1 (s,t)-flows such that for every edge e, ℬ contains an (s,t)-max-flow of G-e. This covering property is tight up to constants for single failures and provably cannot extend to comparably small families for k ≥ 2, where we show an Ω(n) lower bound on the family size, independent of λ. 2) Max-Flow Sensitivity Oracle: Using the fault-tolerant flow family, we construct a single as well as dual-edge sensitivity oracle for (s,t)-max-flow that requires only O(λ n) space. Given any set F of up to two failing edges, the oracle reports the updated max-flow value in G-F in O(n) time. Additionally, for the single-failure case, the oracle can determine in constant time whether the flow through an edge x changes when another edge e fails. 3) Min-Cut Sensitivity Oracle for Dual Failures: Recently, Baswana et al. (ICALP’22) designed an O(n²)-sized oracle for answering (s,t)-min-cut size queries under dual edge failures in constant time, along with a matching lower bound. We extend this by focusing on graphs with small min-cut values λ, and present a more compact oracle of size O(λ n) that answers such min-cut size queries in constant time and reports the corresponding (s,t)-min-cut partition in O(n) time. We also show that the space complexity of our oracle is asymptotically optimal in this setting. 4) Min-Cut Sensitivity Oracle for Multiple Failures: We extend our results to the general case of k edge failures. For any graph with (s,t)-min-cut of size λ, we construct a k-fault-tolerant min-cut oracle with space complexity O_{λ,k}(n log n) that answers min-cut size queries in O_{λ,k}(log n) time. This also leads to improved fault-tolerant (s,t)-reachability oracles, achieving O(n log n) space and O(log n) query time for up to k = O(1) edge failures.

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Mridul Ahi, Keerti Choudhary, Shlok Pande, Pushpraj, and Lakshay Saggi. Maximum-Flow and Minimum-Cut Sensitivity Oracles for Directed Graphs. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 5:1-5:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{ahi_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.5,
  author =	{Ahi, Mridul and Choudhary, Keerti and Pande, Shlok and Pushpraj and Saggi, Lakshay},
  title =	{{Maximum-Flow and Minimum-Cut Sensitivity Oracles for Directed Graphs}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{5:1--5:24},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-410-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{362},
  editor =	{Saraf, Shubhangi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.5},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-252920},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.5},
  annote =	{Keywords: Fault tolerance, Data structures, Minimum cuts, Maximum flows}
}

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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.39

Efficient Algorithms for the Disjoint Shortest Paths Problem and Its Extensions

Authors: Keerti Choudhary, Amit Kumar, and Lakshay Saggi

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 362, 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)

Abstract

We study the 2-Disjoint Shortest Paths (2-DSP) problem: given a directed weighted graph and two terminal pairs (s₁,t₁) and (s₂,t₂), decide whether there exist vertex-disjoint shortest paths between each pair. Building on recent advances in disjoint shortest paths for DAGs and undirected graphs (Akmal et al. 2024), we present an O(mn log n)-time algorithm for this problem in weighted directed graphs that do not contain negative or zero weight cycles. This algorithm presents a significant improvement over the previously known O(m⁵n)-time bound (Berczi et al. 2017). Our approach exploits the algebraic structure of polynomials that enumerate shortest paths between terminal pairs. A key insight is that these polynomials admit a recursive decomposition, enabling efficient evaluation via dynamic programming over fields of characteristic two. Furthermore, we demonstrate how to report the corresponding paths in O(mn² log n)-time. In addition, we extend our techniques to a more general setting: given two terminal pairs (s₁, t₁) and (s₂, t₂) in a directed graph, find the minimum possible number of vertex intersections between any shortest path from s₁ to t₁ and s₂ to t₂. We call this the Minimum 2-Disjoint Shortest Paths (Min-2-DSP) problem. We provide in this paper the first efficient algorithm for this problem, including an O(m² n³)-time algorithm for directed graphs with positive edge weights, and an O(m+n)-time algorithm for DAGs and undirected graphs. Moreover, if the number of intersecting vertices is at least one, we show that it is possible to report the paths in the same O(m+n)-time. This is somewhat surprising, as there is no known o(mn) time algorithm for explicitly reporting the paths if they are vertex-disjoint, and is left as an open problem in (Akmal et al. 2024).

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Keerti Choudhary, Amit Kumar, and Lakshay Saggi. Efficient Algorithms for the Disjoint Shortest Paths Problem and Its Extensions. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 39:1-39:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{choudhary_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.39,
  author =	{Choudhary, Keerti and Kumar, Amit and Saggi, Lakshay},
  title =	{{Efficient Algorithms for the Disjoint Shortest Paths Problem and Its Extensions}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{39:1--39:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-410-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{362},
  editor =	{Saraf, Shubhangi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.39},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253267},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.39},
  annote =	{Keywords: Disjoint paths, Disjoint shortest paths, Algebraic graph algorithms}
}

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Maximum-Flow and Minimum-Cut Sensitivity Oracles for Directed Graphs

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Efficient Algorithms for the Disjoint Shortest Paths Problem and Its Extensions

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