Parallel Minimum Cuts in Near-linear Work and Low Depth

Abstract: We present the first near-linear work and poly-logarithmic depth algorithm for computing a minimum cut in a graph, while previous parallel algorithms with poly-logarithmic depth required at least quadratic work in the number of vertices. In a graph with $n$ vertices and $m$ edges, our algorithm computes the correct result with high probability in $O(m {\log}^4 n)$ work and $O({\log}^3 n)$ depth. This result is obtained by parallelizing a data structure that aggregates weights along paths in a tree and by exploiting the connection between minimum cuts and approximate maximum packings of spanning trees. In addition, our algorithm improves upon bounds on the number of cache misses incurred to compute a minimum cut.