Incremental Directed Minimum Cut by Dynamizing Gabow's Algorithm

Abstract

We give the first incremental algorithm for directed global minimum cut. Given a directed graph with $n$ vertices undergoing $m$ edge insertions, our deterministic algorithm explicitly maintains a global minimum cut or certifies that its value is at least $k$ in $O(km\log n)$ total update time. Prior work required either that $k\le 2$ or that the graph is undirected. Our algorithm is a strict incremental extension of Gabow's state-of-the-art static algorithm (JCSS 1995), with no asymptotic loss in running time over the entire insertion sequence.