Partial inverse maximum spanning tree in which weight can only be decreased under $$l_p$$ l p -norm

Abstract

The maximum or minimum spanning tree problem is a classical combinatorial optimization problem. In this paper, we consider the partial inverse maximum spanning tree problem in which the weight function can only be decreased. Given a graph, an acyclic edge set, and an edge weight function, the goal of this problem is to decrease weights as little as possible such that there exists with respect to function containing the given edge set. If the given edge set has at least two edges, we show that this problem is APX-Hard. If the given edge set contains only one edge, we present a polynomial time algorithm.