A Dynamic Programming Approach for the Max-Min Cycle Packing Problem in Even Graphs

Abstract

Let be an undirected graph. The maximum cycle packing problem in G then is to find a collection of edge-disjoint cycles C<sub>i</sup>in G such that s is maximum. In general, the maximum cycle packing problem is NP-hard. In this paper, it is shown for even graphs that if such a collection satisfies the condition that it minimizes the quantity on the set of all edge-disjoint cycle collections, then it is a maximum cycle packing. The paper shows that the determination of such a packing can be solved by a dynamic programming approach. For its solution, an -shortest path procedure on an appropriate acyclic network is presented. It uses a particular monotonous node potential.