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Mengers Theorem

This document outlines Menger's theorem, which states that the size of a maximum disjoint path connector between two sets of vertices in a graph is equal to the size of a minimum vertex separator between those sets. It provides definitions, states the theorem as a lemma, and proves it using induction on the number of edges in the graph.

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26 views2 pages

Mengers Theorem

This document outlines Menger's theorem, which states that the size of a maximum disjoint path connector between two sets of vertices in a graph is equal to the size of a minimum vertex separator between those sets. It provides definitions, states the theorem as a lemma, and proves it using induction on the number of edges in the graph.

Uploaded by

Rahul
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Menger’s Theorem

Jack Dawkins
June 2019

1 Definitions
Let G be any graph and A and B be any two disjoint sets of vertices from G.
An AB path is a path that starts in A, ends in B and passes through no other
vertices in A or B. An AB connector is a set of disjoint AB paths. A set of
vertices S is an AB separator if every AB path passes through a vertex in S.

2 Theorem
Lemma 1: Let G be any graph and A and B be any two disjoint sets of vertices
from G. A maximal AB connector is the same size as a minimum AB separator.

Proof: First, we give a bound on these sets. Let G, A and B be as above


and C be a maximal AB connector. Clearly, any AB separator contains at
least one vertex from each path in C. Therefore, any AB separator is at least
as big as a maximal AB connector. Now, we prove the result using induction
on the number of edges in a graph. Let G be any graph with no edges and A
and B be any two disjoint sets of vertices from G. There are no AB paths and,
therefore, the only AB connector has size 0 and the only AB separator has size
0. Now for the inductive step. Let G′ be any graph, e = (e1 , e2 ) be an edge
in G′ , G = G′ − {e}, A and B be any two disjoint sets of vertices in G′ , and
P = {p1 , p2 , . . . pj } be all the AB paths in G′ but not G. Let us assume 1 ≤ |P |
because if |P | = 0 the claim easily follows. There are two cases to consider:

Case 1: There is some maximal AB connector in G, C, and some p ∈ P


so that p is disjoint from all paths in C.
Let C and p satisfy this condition. Let C ′ = C ∪ {p}. C ′ is clearly an AB
connector in G′ . C ′ is maximal because it contains a maximal amount of paths
from G and a maximal amount of paths not from G. Let S be any minimal AB
separator in G. By the induction hypothesis S consists of one vertex from each
q ∈ C. Clearly, S ′ = S ∪ {e1 } is a minimal AB separator in G′ .

1
Case 2: The condition for case 1 does not hold, that is, for any maximal
AB connector in G, C, and any p ∈ P there is some q ∈ C that shares some
vertices with p.
Let C be any maximal AB connector in G. We know at least one of the following
is true:
• For every p ∈ P , there is some q ∈ C that shares vertices with p that p
passes through before or at e1 .
• For every p ∈ P , there is some q ∈ C that shares vertices with p that p
passes through at or after e2 .

Indeed, if neither of those were true we could construct an AB path that does
not share any vertices with any q ∈ C. Using this fact, assume without loss
of generality every path from a ∈ A to e1 intersects some q ∈ C. Let S be
any minimal AB separator in G, t be any path from a ∈ A to e1 and q be a
path from C that t intersects. Let x be the first vertex t passes through that
q also passes through. The AB path that begins where t begins, takes t to x
and then q to b ∈ B must pass through v ∈ S at some point. Therefore, t
either passes through S or intersects with q before q reaches S. From this we
can see t is not disjoint from any maximal AS connector E. Indeed, for any t,
we have that either t intersects S(and then is not disjoint from E) or we can
construct a maximal AB connector from E and then find some path in it that
t intersects before S(that would become an element of E if we cut it off at S).
Let R = S ∪ {e1 }. We see now E is a maximal AR connector. By the induction
hypothesis, there is a minimal AR separator S ′ with the same size as E. S ′ is
an AB separator in G′ because any AB path in G′ passes through R.

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