Parametric Computation of Minimum-Cost Flows with Piecewise Quadratic Costs

Abstract

We develop algorithms solving parametric flow problems with separable, continuous, piecewise quadratic, and strictly convex cost functions. The parameter to be considered is a common multiplier on the demand of all nodes. Our algorithms compute a family of flows that are each feasible for the respective demand and minimize the costs among the feasible flows for that demand. For single commodity networks with homogenous cost functions, our algorithm requires one matrix multiplication for the initialization, a rank 1 update for each nondegenerate step and the solution of a convex quadratic program for each degenerate step. For nonhomogeneous cost functions, the initialization requires the solution of a convex quadratic program instead. For multi-commodity networks, both the initialization and every step of the algorithm require the solution of a convex program. As each step is mirrored by a breakpoint in the output this yields output-polynomial algorithms in every case.