All-Subsets Important Separators with Applications to Sample Sets, Balanced Separators and Vertex Sparsifiers in Directed Graphs

TL;DR

The paper bounds the number of all-subsets important separators in directed graphs by β(|S|,|T|,k) = 4^k {|S| \\choose ≤ k} {|T| \\choose ≤ 2k} and shows these separators can be enumerated in O(β(|S|,|T|,k) k^2 (m+n)). Using this structural result, it extends undirected notions to directed graphs to obtain detection and sample sets with sizes polylogarithmic in ε and linear in k, derives an FPT algorithm for Directed Balanced Separator with runtime 2^{O(k min{log(1/b),log k}) log(1/ε)/ε^2} (m+n) and a matching O(√log k) approximation, and provides deterministic vertex sparsifiers of size ψ(|T|,c) = {|T| \\choose ≤ 3c} 2^{O(c)} that preserve small cuts between terminal sets. The methods integrate closest-set flow arguments, VC-dimension analysis, Skew Separator reductions, and ARV-based rounding, yielding new directed-graph cut tools with potential applications to sampling, partitioning, and sparsification. Overall, the work generalizes key undirected results to directed graphs and delivers practical FPT and approximation algorithms for balanced cuts and vertex sparsifiers in directed settings.

Abstract

Given a directed graph $G$ with $n$ vertices and $m$ edges, a parameter $k$ and two disjoint subsets $S,T \subseteq V(G)$, we show that the number of all-subsets important separators, which is the number of $A$-$B$ important vertex separators of size at most $k$ over all $A \subseteq S$ and $B \subseteq T$, is at most $β(|S|, |T|, k) = 4^k {|S| \choose \leq k} {|T| \choose \leq 2k}$, where ${x \choose \leq c} = \sum_{i = 1}^c {x \choose i}$, and that they can be enumerated in time $O(β(|S|,|T|,k)k^2(m+n))$. This is a generalization of the folklore result stating that the number of $A$-$B$ important separators for two fixed sets $A$ and $B$ is at most $4^k$ (first implicitly shown by Chen, Liu and Lu Algorithmica '09). From this result, we obtain the following applications: We give a construction for detection sets and sample sets in directed graphs, generalizing the results of Kleinberg (Internet Mathematics' 03) and Feige and Mahdian (STOC' 06) to directed graphs. Via our new sample sets, we give the first FPT algorithm for finding balanced separators in directed graphs parameterized by $k$, the size of the separator. Our algorithm runs in time $2^{O(k)} (m + n)$. We also give a $O({\sqrt{\log k}})$ approximation algorithm for the same problem. Finally, we present new results on vertex sparsifiers for preserving small cuts.

Figures (2)

• Figure 1: Summary of contribution of our paper
• Figure 2: Tight example for important separator preservation.

Theorems & Definitions (63)

• Theorem 1.1: All Subsets Important Separators
• Lemma 1.1
• Theorem 1.2
• Theorem 1.3
• Theorem 1.4: fm06
• Theorem 1.5
• Theorem 1.6
• Theorem 1.7: kratsch2012representative, misra2020linear
• Theorem 1.8
• Corollary 1.9