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Minimum Cut

What is a Minimum Cut in a graph?

Let G be a graph and weight a non-negative function on the edges of G. A cut in G a is a subset of the nodes that is neither empty nor the complete set of nodes. The weight of a cut is the sum of the weights of the edges having exactly one end node in the cut. A minimum cut is a cut of minimum weight.

Remark: To use the minimum cut algorithm provided by LEDA the edge weights must be non-negative.

Application of Minimum Cut

The problem of finding the minimum weight cut in a graph plays an important role in the design of communication networks. If a few of the links are cut or otherwise fail, the network may still be able to transmit messages between any pair of its nodes. If enough links fail, however, there will be at least one pair of nodes that cannot communicate with each other. Thus an important measure of the reliability of a network is the minimum number of links that must fail in order for this to happen.

Algorithm for Minimum Cut

MIN_CUT() is the LEDA function to compute a minimum cut in a graph with non-negative edge weights.

Example of How to Use MIN_CUT()

Running Time

For a graph G=(V,E) the running time of MIN_CUT() is O(|V||E|+|V|2log|V|).

See also:

Graph Algorithms

Graphs and Related Data Types


Minimum Cost Flow

Maximum Flow


Manual Entries:

Manual Page Minimum Cut



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