English

Multicut is FPT

Data Structures and Algorithms 2010-11-24 v3

Abstract

Let G=(V,E)G=(V,E) be a graph on nn vertices and RR be a set of pairs of vertices in VV called \emph{requests}. A \emph{multicut} is a subset FF of EE such that every request xyxy of RR is cut by FF, \i.e. every xyxy-path of GG intersects FF. We show that there exists an O(f(k)nc)O(f(k)n^c) algorithm which decides if there exists a multicut of size at most kk. In other words, the \M{} problem parameterized by the solution size kk is Fixed-Parameter Tractable. The proof extends to vertex multicuts.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1010.5197,
  title  = {Multicut is FPT},
  author = {Nicolas Bousquet and Jean Daligault and Stéphan Thomassé},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1010.5197},
  year   = {2010}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T16:33:51.368Z