Graph Theory IISER Pune October 2022

Max-Flow Min-cut

1. Consider the network on the left, where the numbers on the edges indicate the ca-
pacities. A flow of value 23 in this network is shown in the figure on the right.
5 11 5 10
a b c a b c
8 12 8 10
4 5 1 3 5 0

11 15 7 6 3 10 7 6
s e f g t s e f g t

5 2 5 4 2 1
12 7 12 7

h 11
i 9
j h 8
i 6
j

You need to decide the direction of every edge so that the flow conservation rule is
satisfied. What is the direction of the edge between vertices i and f .
(i, f )
(f, i)

2. Consider the network in Problem 1. What is the capacity of the cut [S, S̄] where
S = {s, a, e, f, h, i, j} and S̄ = V \ S?
22
23
24
25

3. Consider the network in Problem 1. What is the net flow across the cut [S, S̄] where
S = {s, a, e, f, h, i, j} and S̄ = V \ S?
22
23
24
25

4. Consider the network in Problem 1. Draw the residual network with respect to given
flow. Consider the path p = (s, e, f, i, j, g, c, t). What is the capacity δ(P ) of this
path.
1
2
3
4
5. Consider the path P in Problem 4. Push δ(G) units of flow along the path p =
(s, e, f, i, j, g, c, t). The resulting flow value is:
24
25
26
27

6. Consider the network in Problem 1. The value of maximum flow in G is

23
24
25
26

7. Consider the network in Problem 1. A minimum s − t cut in G is

S = {s, a, e, f, h, i, j} and S̄ = V − S
S = {s, a, e, f, h, i} and S̄ = V − S
S = {s, a, e} and S̄ = V − S
S = {s, a, f, h, i} and S̄ = V − S

8. You are given a flow network such that all of the capacities are even. Then the value
of the maximum flow is
always even
always odd
cannot say
 9. Figure below shows a flow network on which an s − t flow has been computed.

5/5
6/10 1/1 0/2

3/3 5/6 5/5

s b c t

1/3 0/3
1/1 0/10

(a) What is the value of this flow? Is this a maximum (s, t) flow in this graph?
(b) Find a minimum s − t cut in the flow network and also say what its capacity is.
10. An edge is of type 1 if increasing the capacity of the edge increases the max flow.
Find a type 1 edge of G in Question 1, if one exists.
11. An edge is of type 2 if decreasing the capacity of the edge decreases the max flow.
Find a type 2 edge of the network G given in Question 1, if one exists. Give an
efficient algorithm that finds a type 2 edge in a network.
12. Given a flow network G = (V, E), let f1 and f2 be functions from V × V to R. The
flow sum f1 + f2 is the function from V × V to R defined by
(f1 + f2 )(u, v) = f1 (u, v) + f2 (u, v)
for all u, v ∈ V . If f1 and f2 are flows in G, which of the three flow properties must
the flow sum f1 + f2 satisfy, and which might it violate?
13. The edge connectivity of an undirected graph is the minimum number k of edges
that must be removed to disconnect the graph. Show how the edge connectivity of
an undirected graph G = (V, E) can be determined by a max-flow algorithm on at
most |V | flow networks, each having O(V ) vertices and O(E) edges.
14. Decide whether you think the following statement is true or false. If it is true, give
a short explanation. If it is false, give a counterexample.
Let G be an arbitrary flow network, with a sours s and a sink t, and a positive integer
capacity ce on every edge e; and let (A, B) be a minimum s − t cut with respect to
these capacities {ce : e ∈ E}. Now suppose we add 1 to every capacity; then (A, B)
is still a minimum s − t cut with respect to these new capacities {1 + ce : e ∈ E}.
15. Prove that for any pair of vertices u and v and any capacity and flow functions c and
f, we have rf (u, v) + rf (v, u) = c(u, v) + c(v, u).
16. Let G = (A∪B, E) is an undirected bipartite graph. Can you find maximum matching
in G using Ford-Fulkerson Algorithm?
17. In the network below, what is the minimum cut corresponding to the maximum flow
shown? Of the augmenting paths appearing in the figure, which two cancel flow?

Figure 1: The example for problem 5. This figure depicts successive iterations of the loop
in the Ford-Fulkerson algorithm. The left side of each part shows the residual network
Gf with a shaded augmenting path p. The right side of each part shows the new flow
that results from adding fp to f . The residual network in (a) is the input graph G. The
residual network in (e) has no augmenting paths, therefore the flow shown in (e) is a
maximum flow.

18. A vertex cover of an undirected graph G = (V, E) is a subset of the vertices which
touches every edge—that is, a subset S ⊂ V such that for each edge {u, v} ∈ E, one
or both of u, v are in S. Show that the problem of finding the minimum vertex cover
in a bipartite graph reduces to maximum flow. (Hint: Can you relate this problem
to the minimum cut in an appropriate network?)