Mimicking networks and succinct representations of terminal cuts

Abstract

Given a large edge-weighted network G with k terminal vertices, we wish to compress it and store, using little memory, the value of the minimum cut (or equivalently, maximum flow) between every bipartition of terminals. One appealing methodology to implement a compression of G is to construct a mimicking network: a small network G' with the same k terminals, in which the minimum cut value between every bipartition of terminals is the same as in G. This notion was introduced by Hagerup, Katajainen, Nishimura, and Ragde [JCSS '98], who proved that such G' of size at most 2