Faster Algorithms for Global Minimum Vertex-Cut in Directed Graphs

We study the directed global minimum vertex-cut problem: given a directed vertex-weighted graph $G$, compute a vertex-cut $(L,S,R)$ in $G$ of minimum value, which is defined to be the total weight of all vertices in $S$. The problem, together with its edge-based variant, is one of the most basic in graph theory and algorithms, and has been studied extensively. The fastest currently known algorithm for directed global minimum vertex-cut (Henzinger, Rao and Gabow, FOCS 1996 and J. Algorithms 2000) has running time $\tilde{O}(mn)$, where $m$ and $n$ denote the number of edges and vertices in the input graph, respectively. A long line of work over the past decades led to faster algorithms for other main versions of the problem, including the undirected edge-based setting (Karger, STOC 1996 and J. ACM 2000), directed edge-based setting (Cen et al., FOCS 2021), and undirected vertex-based setting (Chuzhoy and Trabelsi, STOC 2025). However, for the vertex-based version in directed graphs, the 29 year-old $\tilde{O}(mn)$-time algorithm of Henzinger, Rao and Gabow remains the state of the art to this day, in all edge-density regimes. In this paper we break the $\Theta(mn)$ running time barrier for the first time, by providing a randomized algorithm for directed global minimum vertex-cut, with running time $O\left(mn^{0.976}\cdot\operatorname{polylog} W\right)$ where $W$ is the ratio of largest to smallest vertex weight. Additionally, we provide a randomized $O\left(\min\left\{m^{1+o(1)}\cdot k,n^{2+o(1)}\right\}\right)$-time algorithm for the unweighted version of directed global minimum vertex-cut, where $k$ is the value of the optimal solution. The best previous algorithm for the problem achieved running time $\tilde O\left(\min\left\{k^2 \cdot m, mn^{11/12+o(1)}, n^{2+o(1)}\right\}\right)$ (Forster et al., SODA 2020, Li et al., STOC 2021).