Minimum Stable Cut and Treewidth
This addresses computational complexity challenges in graph theory for researchers, with mostly incremental algorithmic improvements and hardness results.
The paper tackles the NP-hard Minimum Stable Cut problem on graphs with low treewidth or degree, showing it remains weakly NP-hard even on restricted trees and providing pseudo-polynomial and FPT algorithms with optimality proofs under the Exponential Time Hypothesis, along with an FPT approximation scheme for almost-stable solutions.
A stable or locally-optimal cut of a graph is a cut whose weight cannot be increased by changing the side of a single vertex. In this paper we study Minimum Stable Cut, the problem of finding a stable cut of minimum weight. Since this problem is NP-hard, we study its complexity on graphs of low treewidth, low degree, or both. We begin by showing that the problem remains weakly NP-hard on severely restricted trees, so bounding treewidth alone cannot make it tractable. We match this hardness with a pseudo-polynomial DP algorithm solving the problem in time $(Î\cdot W)^{O(tw)}n^{O(1)}$, where $tw$ is the treewidth, $Î$ the maximum degree, and $W$ the maximum weight. On the other hand, bounding $Î$ is also not enough, as the problem is NP-hard for unweighted graphs of bounded degree. We therefore parameterize Minimum Stable Cut by both $tw$ and $Î$ and obtain an FPT algorithm running in time $2^{O(Îtw)}(n+\log W)^{O(1)}$. Our main result for the weighted problem is to provide a reduction showing that both aforementioned algorithms are essentially optimal, even if we replace treewidth by pathwidth: if there exists an algorithm running in $(nW)^{o(pw)}$ or $2^{o(Îpw)}(n+\log W)^{O(1)}$, then the ETH is false. Complementing this, we show that we can, however, obtain an FPT approximation scheme parameterized by treewidth, if we consider almost-stable solutions, that is, solutions where no single vertex can unilaterally increase the weight of its incident cut edges by more than a factor of $(1+\varepsilon)$. Motivated by these mostly negative results, we consider Unweighted Minimum Stable Cut. Here our results already imply a much faster exact algorithm running in time $Î^{O(tw)}n^{O(1)}$. We show that this is also probably essentially optimal: an algorithm running in $n^{o(pw)}$ would contradict the ETH.