Design and Analyis of Algorithms: Minimum Spanning Trees

Overview

Tree: A connected graph with no cycles.
Given a graph G, any tree that includes all of the vertices of G is called a spanning tree. The lowest-weight tree that does that is a minimum spanning tree.

These are used to solve problems such as:

This problem can be solved using a greedy algorithm.

It runs on a weighted graph. (On an unweighted graph, all spanning trees are minimal: tree property E = V - 1.)

The Generic MST Algorithm

Generic-MST(G, w)
A = ∅
while A does not form a spanning tree
        fine an edge (u, v) that is safe for A
        A = A ∪ {(u, v)}
return A

Loop invariants:

Finding a "safe" edge

How do we find a safe edge?
One must exist, since we are working with a connected graph, and A is at all times a part of an MST.
Definition: a cut (S, V - S) of an undirected graph G = (V, E) is a partition of V.
Definition: an edge (u, v) crosses the cut (S, V - S) if one of its endpoints is in S and the other in V.
Definition: a cut respects a set A of edges if no edge in A crosses the cut.
Definition: An edge is a light edge crossing a cut if its weight is minimum among all edges crossing the cut. Uniqueness is not required.

Kruskal's Algorithm



We add edges in increasing-cost order, so long as the edges don't create a cycle (are "safe").
Steps:



Proof: Is Kruskal's algorithm guaranteed to always find the minimum spanning tree?
Yes, it is. Let's prove it.
We suppose that graph G has n vertices. Then our algorithm will create a tree T with edges e1, e2, ... en - 1, where w(e1) ≤ w(e2) ≤ ... w(en - 1).
Suppose that there is a tree T* with a lesser weight.
Let ek be the first edge in T that is not in T*.
Now we insert ek in T*. This will produce a cycle in T*, by the nature of trees. There must be some edge e* that is in T* but not in T (otherwise T would have a cycle).

But the weight of ek must be less than the weight of e*, because after we had inserted e1 through ek - 1, we could have next chosen e*... but we did not. Instead we chose ek.
So T* does not have a lesser weight after all.

How to find safe edges

Prim's Algorithm

The big difference from Kruskal: in Kruskal, we have a set of edges, perhaps with no connections, that eventually turns into a tree.
With Prim, we continually have an ever-growing tree. In fact, it is always an MST of a sub-graph of our graph.

Source Code

Python

For Further Study

Homework