2015 journal article
On size-constrained minimum s-t cut problems and size-constrained dense subgraph problems
THEORETICAL COMPUTER SCIENCE, 609, 434–442.
In some application cases, the solutions of combinatorial optimization problems on graphs should satisfy an additional vertex size constraint. In this paper, we consider size-constrained minimum s–t cut problems and size-constrained dense subgraph problems. We introduce the minimum s–t cut with at-least-k vertices problem, the minimum s–t cut with at-most-k vertices problem, and the minimum s–t cut with exactly k vertices problem. We prove that they are NP-complete. Thus, they are not polynomially solvable unless P=NP. On the other hand, we also study the densest at-least-k-subgraph problem (DalkS) and the densest at-most-k-subgraph problem (DamkS) introduced by Andersen and Chellapilla [1]. We present a polynomial time algorithm for DalkS when k is bounded by some constant c. We also present two approximation algorithms for DamkS. The first approximation algorithm for DamkS has an approximation ratio of n−1k−1, where n is the number of vertices in the input graph. The second approximation algorithm for DamkS has an approximation ratio of O(nδ), for some δ<1/3.