Connectivity (graph theory)

In mathematics and computer science, connectivity is one of the basic concepts of

graph theory: it asks for the minimum number of elements (nodes or edges) that
need to be removed to disconnect the remaining nodes from each other.[1] It is
closely related to the theory of network flow problems. The connectivity of a graph
is an important measure of its resilience as a network.

Contents
1 Connected graph
2 Definitions of components, cuts and connectivity
2.1 Super- and hyper-connectivity This graph becomes disconnected
3 Menger's theorem when the right-most node in the gray
area on the left is removed
4 Computational aspects
4.1 Number of connected graphs
5 Examples
6 Bounds on connectivity
7 Other properties
8 See also
9 References

Connected graph This graph becomes disconnected

when the dashed edge is removed.
A graph is connected when there is a path between every pair of vertices. In a
connected graph, there are no unreachable vertices. A graph that is not connected is
disconnected. A graph G is said to be disconnected if there exist two nodes in G
such that no path in G has those nodes as endpoints.
A graph with just one vertex is connected. An edgeless graph with two or more
vertices is disconnected.

Definitions of components, cuts and

connectivity With vertex 0 this graph is
disconnected, the rest of the graph is
In an undirected graph G, two vertices u and v are called connected if G contains a connected.
path from u to v. Otherwise, they are called disconnected. If the two vertices are
additionally connected by a path of length 1, i.e. by a single edge, the vertices are
called adjacent. A graph is said to be connected if every pair of vertices in the graph is connected.

A connected component is a maximal connected subgraph of G. Each vertex belongs to exactly one connected component, as does
each edge.
A directed graph is called weakly connected if replacing all of its directed edges with undirected edges produces a connected
(undirected) graph. It is connected if it contains a directed path from u to v or a directed path from v to u for every pair of vertices
u, v. It is strongly connected, diconnected, or simply strong if it contains a directed path from u to v and a directed path from v to u
for every pair of verticesu, v. The strong components are the maximal strongly connected subgraphs.

A cut, vertex cut, or separating set of a connected graph G is a set of vertices whose removal renders G disconnected. The
connectivity or vertex connectivity (G) (where G is not a complete graph) is the size of a minimal vertex cut. A graph is called k-
connected or k-vertex-connected if its vertex connectivity isk or greater.

More precisely, any graph G (complete or not) is said to be k-connected if it contains at least k+1 vertices, but does not contain a set
of k 1 vertices whose removal disconnects the graph; and (G) is defined as the largest k such that G is k-connected. In
particular, a complete graph with n vertices, denoted Kn, has no vertex cuts at all, but (Kn) = n 1 . A vertex cut for two vertices
u and v is a set of vertices whose removal from the graph disconnects u and v. The local connectivity (u, v) is the size of a
smallest vertex cut separating u and v. Local connectivity is symmetric for undirected graphs; that is, (u, v) = (v, u). Moreover,
except for complete graphs,(G) equals the minimum of(u, v) over all nonadjacent pairs of verticesu, v.

2-connectivity is also calledbiconnectivity and 3-connectivity is also calledtriconnectivity. A graph G which is connected but not 2-
connected is sometimes calledseparable.

Analogous concepts can be defined for edges. In the simple case in which cutting a single, specific edge would disconnect the graph,
that edge is called a bridge. More generally, an edge cut of G is a set of edges whose removal renders the graph disconnected. The
edge-connectivity (G) is the size of a smallest edge cut, and the local edge-connectivity (u, v) of two vertices u, v is the size of a
smallest edge cut disconnecting u from v. Again, local edge-connectivity is symmetric. A graph is called k-edge-connected if its
edge connectivity is k or greater.

A graph is said to be maximally connected if its connectivity equals its minimum degree. A graph is said to be maximally edge-
[2]
connected if its edge-connectivity equals its minimum degree.

Super- and hyper-connectivity

A graph is said to be super-connected or super- if every minimum vertex cut isolates a vertex. A graph is said to be hyper-connected
or hyper- if the deletion of each minimum vertex cut creates exactly two components, one of which is an isolated vertex. A graph is
[3]
semi-hyper-connected or semi-hyper- if any minimum vertex cut separates the graph into exactly two components.

More precisely: a G connected graph is said to be super-connected or super- if all minimum vertex-cuts consist of the vertices
adjacent with one (minimum-digree) vertex. A G connected graph is said to be super-edge-connected or super- if all minimum
[4]
edge-cuts consist of the edges incident on some (minimum-digree) vertex.

A cutset X of G is called a non-trivial cutset if X does not contain the neighborhood N(u) of any vertex u X. Then the
superconnectivity 1 of G is:

1(G) = min{|X| : X is a non-trivial cutset}.

A non-trivial edge-cut and theedge-superconnectivity 1(G) are defined analogously.[5]

Menger's theorem
One of the most important facts about connectivity in graphs is Menger's theorem, which characterizes the connectivity and edge-
connectivity of a graph in terms of the number of independent paths between vertices.

If u and v are vertices of a graphG, then a collection of paths betweenu and v is called independent if no two of them share a vertex
(other than u and v themselves). Similarly, the collection is edge-independent if no two paths in it share an edge. The number of
mutually independent paths between u and v is written as (u, v), and the number of mutually edge-independent paths between u
and v is written as (u, v).

Menger's theorem asserts that for distinct vertices u,v, (u, v) equals (u, v), and if u is also not adjacent to v then (u, v) equals
(u, v).[6][7] This fact is actually a special case of themax-flow min-cut theorem.

Computational aspects
The problem of determining whether two vertices in a graph are connected can be solved efficiently using a search algorithm, such as
breadth-first search. More generally, it is easy to determine computationally whether a graph is connected (for example, by using a
disjoint-set data structure), or to count the number of connected components. A simple algorithm might be written in pseudo-code as
follows:

1. Begin at any arbitrary node of the graph,G

2. Proceed from that node using either depth-first or breadth-first search, counting all nodes reached.
3. Once the graph has been entirely traversed, if the number of nodes counted is equal to the number of nodes G
of,
the graph is connected; otherwise it is disconnected.
By Menger's theorem, for any two vertices u and v in a connected graph G, the numbers (u, v) and (u, v) can be determined
efficiently using the max-flow min-cut algorithm. The connectivity and edge-connectivity of G can then be computed as the
minimum values of (u, v) and (u, v), respectively.

In computational complexity theory, SL is the class of problems log-space reducible to the problem of determining whether two
vertices in a graph are connected, which was proved to be equal to L by Omer Reingold in 2004.[8] Hence, undirected graph
connectivity may be solved inO(log n) space.

The problem of computing the probability that aBernoulli random graph is connected is called network reliability and the problem of
-reliability problem. Both of these are#P-hard.[9]
computing whether two given vertices are connected the ST

Number of connected graphs

The number of distinct connected labeled graphs with n nodes is tabulated in the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences as
sequence A001187, through n = 15. The first few non-trivial terms are

n graphs
2 1
3 4
4 38
5 728
6 26704
7 1866256
8 251548592

Examples
The vertex- and edge-connectivities of a disconnected graph are both0.
1-connectedness is equivalent to connectedness for graphs of at least 2 vertices.
The complete graph on n vertices has edge-connectivity equal ton 1 . Every other simple graph onn vertices has
strictly smaller edge-connectivity.
In a tree, the local edge-connectivity between every pair of vertices is1.

Bounds on connectivity
 . That is, (G) (G). Both are less
The vertex-connectivity of a graph is less than or equal to its edge-connectivity
than or equal to the minimum degree of the graph, since deleting all neighbors of a vertex of minimum degree will
[1]
disconnect that vertex from the rest of the graph.
For a vertex-transitive graph of degree d, we have: 2(d + 1)/3 (G) (G) = d.[10]
For a vertex-transitive graph of degree d 4 , or for any (undirected) minimalCayley graph of degree d, or for any
symmetric graph of degree d, both kinds of connectivity are equal:(G) = (G) = d.[11]

Other properties
Connectedness is preserved bygraph homomorphisms.
If G is connected then its line graph L(G) is also connected.
A graph G is 2-edge-connected if and only if it has an orientation that is strongly connected.
Balinski's theorem states that the polytopal graph (1-skeleton) of a k-dimensional convex polytope is a k-vertex-
connected graph.[12] Steinitz's previous theorem that any 3-vertex-connectedplanar graph is a polytopal graph
(Steinitz theorem) gives a partial converse.
According to a theorem ofG. A. Dirac, if a graph is k-connected for k 2 , then for every set of k vertices in the
[13][14] The converse is true whenk = 2 .
graph there is a cycle that passes through all the vertices in the set.

See also
Algebraic connectivity
Cheeger constant (graph theory)
Dynamic connectivity, Disjoint-set data structure, Partition refinement
Expander graph
Graph property
Scale-free network
Small-world networks, Six degrees of separation, Small world phenomenon
Strength of a graph

References
1. Diestel, R. (2005). "Graph Theory, Electronic Edition" (http://diestel-graph-theory.com/GrTh.html). p. 12.
2. Gross, Jonathan L.; Yellen, Jay (2004). Handbook of graph theory(https://books.google.com/?id=mKkIGIea_BkC)
.
CRC Press. p. 335 (https://books.google.hu/books?id=mKkIGIea_BkC&lpg=P A335&pg=PA335). ISBN 978-1-58488-
090-5.
3. Liu, Qinghai; Zhang, Zhao (2010-03-01)."The existence and upper bound for two types of restricted connectivity"
(htt
ps://www.researchgate.net/publication/235246832_The_existence_and_upper_bound_for_two_types_of_restricted_
connectivity). Discrete Applied Mathematics. 158: 516521. doi:10.1016/j.dam.2009.10.017(https://doi.org/10.101
6%2Fj.dam.2009.10.017).
4. Gross, Jonathan L.; Yellen, Jay (2004). Handbook of graph theory(https://books.google.com/?id=mKkIGIea_BkC)
.
CRC Press. p. 338 (https://books.google.hu/books?id=mKkIGIea_BkC&lpg=P A338&pg=PA338). ISBN 978-1-58488-
090-5.
5. Balbuena, Camino; Carmona, Angeles (2001-10-01)."On the connectivity and superconnectivity of bipartite digraphs
and graphs" (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.101.1458&rep=rep1&type=pdf). Ars
Combinatorica. 61: 322. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.101.1458 (https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.10
1.1458) .
6. Gibbons, A. (1985). Algorithmic Graph Theory. Cambridge University Press.
7. Nagamochi, H.; Ibaraki, T. (2008). Algorithmic Aspects of Graph Connectivity. Cambridge University Press.
8. Reingold, Omer (2008). "Undirected connectivity in log-space".Journal of the ACM. 55 (4): Article 17, 24 pages.
doi:10.1145/1391289.1391291(https://doi.org/10.1145%2F1391289.1391291) .
9. Provan, J. Scott; Ball, Michael O. (1983). "The complexity of counting cuts and of computing the probability that a
graph is connected". SIAM Journal on Computing. 12 (4): 777788. MR 721012 (https://www.ams.org/mathscinet-ge
titem?mr=721012). doi:10.1137/0212053 (https://doi.org/10.1137%2F0212053)..
10. Godsil, C.; Royle, G. (2001). Algebraic Graph Theory. Springer Verlag.
11. Babai, L. (1996). Automorphism groups, isomorphism, reconstruction(https://web.archive.org/web/20100611212234/
http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/files/tr_authentic/TR-94-10.ps). Technical Report TR-94-10. University of Chicago.
Archived from the original (http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/files/tr_authentic/TR-94-10.ps) on 2010-06-11. Chapter 27 of
The Handbook of Combinatorics.
12. Balinski, M. L. (1961). "On the graph structure of convex polyhedra inn-space" (http://www.projecteuclid.org/Dienst/
UI/1.0/Summarize/euclid.pjm/1103037323). Pacific Journal of Mathematics. 11 (2): 431434.
doi:10.2140/pjm.1961.11.431(https://doi.org/10.2140%2Fpjm.1961.11.431) .
13. Dirac, Gabriel Andrew (1960). "In abstrakten Graphen vorhandene vollstndige 4-Graphen und ihre Unterteilungen".
Mathematische Nachrichten. 22: 6185. MR 0121311 (https://www.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0121311).
doi:10.1002/mana.19600220107(https://doi.org/10.1002%2Fmana.19600220107) ..
14. Flandrin, Evelyne; Li, Hao; Marczyk, Antoni; W oniak, Mariusz (2007). "A generalization of Dirac's theorem on cycles
through k vertices in k-connected graphs". Discrete Mathematics. 307 (78): 878884. MR 2297171 (https://www.am
s.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=2297171). doi:10.1016/j.disc.2005.11.052(https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.disc.2005.11.0
52)..

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