English
Related papers

Related papers: Minimal Separators in Graphs

200 papers

Polat generalised Menger's theorem -- the maximum number of vertex-disjoint paths between two sets $A$ and $B$ equals the minimum size of an $A$-$B$ separator -- to ends of undirected graphs. In this paper we extend Menger's theorem to ends…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-04-13 Florian Reich

Bidirected graphs are a generalisation of directed graphs that arises in the study of undirected graphs with perfect matchings. Menger's famous theorem - the minimum size of a set separating two vertex sets $X$ and $Y$ is the same as the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-06-29 Nathan Bowler , Ebrahim Ghorbani , Florian Gut , Raphael W. Jacobs , Florian Reich

Menger's theorem - the maximum number of vertex-disjoint $X$-$Y$ paths is equal to the minimum size of an $X$-$Y$ separator - is generally not true in bidirected graphs. We prove that Menger's theorem holds true if we take the nontrivial…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-11-18 Ebrahim Ghorbani , Jana Katharina Nickel , Florian Reich

We prove that Menger's theorem is valid for infinite graphs, in the following strong form: let $A$ and $B$ be two sets of vertices in a possibly infinite digraph. Then there exist a set $\cp$ of disjoint $A$-$B$ paths, and a set $S$ of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2007-12-03 Ron Aharoni , Eli Berger

We prove that for a connected simple graph $G$ with $n\le 10$ vertices, and two longest paths $C$ and $D$ in $G$, the intersection of vertex sets $V(C)\cap V(D)$ is a separator. This shows that the graph found previously with $n=11$, in…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-05-26 Juan Gutiérrez , Christian Valqui

We study separating systems of the edges of a graph where each member of the separating system is a path. We conjecture that every $n$-vertex graph admits a separating path system of size $O(n)$ and prove this in certain interesting special…

Let $A$ and $B$ be sets of vertices in a graph $G$. Menger's theorem states that for every positive integer $k$, either there exists a collection of $k$ vertex-disjoint paths between $A$ and $B$, or $A$ can be separated from $B$ by a set of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-09-18 Peter Gartland , Tuukka Korhonen , Daniel Lokshtanov

In this paper, our goal is to characterize two graph classes based on the properties of minimal vertex (edge) separators. We first present a structural characterization of graphs in which every minimal vertex separator is a stable set. We…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2011-03-16 Mrinal Kumar , Gaurav Maheswari , N. Sadagopan

Menger's Theorem is a fundamental result in graph theory. It states that if in a graph $G$ with distinguished sets of terminal vertices $S$ and $T$ there are no $k$ pairwise vertex-disjoint $S$-$T$ paths, then there is a set of less than…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-05-13 Václav Blažej , Michał Pilipczuk , Evangelos Protopapas

Minimal separators in graphs are an important concept in algorithmic graph theory. In particular, many problems that are NP-hard for general graphs are known to become polynomial-time solvable for classes of graphs with a polynomially…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-06-03 Martin Milanič , Nevena Pivač

A set $V$ is said to be separated by subsets $V_1,\ldots,V_k$ if, for every pair of distinct elements of $V$, there is a set $V_i$ that contains exactly one of them. Imposing structural constraints on the separating subsets is often…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-08-06 Lyuben Lichev , Nicolás Sanhueza-Matamala

Let $G$ be a graph and $a,b$ vertices of $G$. A minimal $a,b$-separator of $G$ is an inclusion-wise minimal vertex set of $G$ that separates $a$ and $b$. We consider the problem of enumerating the minimal $a,b$-separators of $G$ that…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-12-17 Tuukka Korhonen

We consider the largest number of minimal separators a graph on n vertices can have at most. We give a new proof that this number is in $O( ((1+\sqrt{5})/2)^n n )$. We prove that this number is in $\omega( 1.4521^n )$, improving on the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2015-04-03 Serge Gaspers , Simon Mackenzie

Menger's theorem says that, for $k\ge0$, if $S, T$ are sets of vertices in a graph $G$, then either there are $k + 1$ vertex-disjoint paths between $S$ and $T$, or there is a set X of at most $k$ vertices such that every $S$-$T$ path passes…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-09-10 Tung Nguyen , Alex Scott , Paul Seymour

A path separator of a graph $G$ is a set of paths $\mathcal{P}=\{P_1,\ldots,P_t\}$ such that for every pair of edges $e,f\in E(G)$, there exist paths $P_e,P_f\in\mathcal{P}$ such that $e\in E(P_e)$, $f\not\in E(P_e)$, $e\not\in E(P_f)$ and…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2016-06-03 József Balogh , Béla Csaba , Ryan R. Martin , András Pluhár

Menger's well-known theorem from 1927 characterizes when it is possible to find $k$ vertex-disjoint paths between two sets of vertices in a graph $G$. Recently, Georgakopoulos and Papasoglu and, independently, Albrechtsen, Huynh, Jacobs,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-01-16 Tung Nguyen , Alex Scott , Paul Seymour

Menger's Edge Theorem asserts that there exist $k$ pairwise edge-disjoint paths between two vertices in an undirected graph if and only if a deletion of any $k-1$ or less edges does not disconnect these two vertices. Alternatively, there…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-04-05 Avraham Goldstein

For a graph $G$, an edge-separating (resp. vertex-separating) path system of $G$ is a family of paths in $G$ such that for any pair of edges $e_1, e_2$ (resp. pair of vertices $v_1, v_2$) of $G$ there is at least one path in the family that…

We explore the concept of separating systems of vertex sets of graphs. A separating system of a set $X$ is a collection of subsets of $X$ such that for any pair of distinct elements in $X$, there exists a set in the separating system that…

We study the problem of finding a maximum cardinality minimal separator of a graph. This problem is known to be NP-hard even for bipartite graphs. In this paper, we strengthen this hardness by showing that for planar bipartite graphs, the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-09-28 Tesshu Hanaka , Yasuaki Kobayashi , Yusuke Kobayashi , Tsuyoshi Yagita
‹ Prev 1 2 3 10 Next ›