Network interdiction problems are a natural way to study the sensitivity of a network optimization problem with respect to the removal of a limited set of edges or vertices. One of the oldest and best-studied interdiction problems is minimum spanning tree (MST) interdiction. Here, an undirected multigraph with nonnegative edge weights and positive interdiction costs on its edges is given, together with a positive budget B. The goal is to find a subset of edges R, whose total interdiction cost does not exceed B, such that removing R leads to a graph where the weight of an MST is as large as possible. Frederickson and Solis-Oba (SODA 1996) presented an O(log m)-approximation for MST interdiction, where m is the number of edges. Since then, no further progress has been made regarding approximations, and the question whether MST interdiction admits an O(1)-approximation remained open. We answer this question in the affirmative, by presenting a 14-approximation that overcomes two main hurdles that hindered further progress so far. Moreover, based on a well-known 2-approximation for the metric traveling salesman problem (TSP), we show that our O(1)-approximation for MST interdiction implies an O(1)-approximation for a natural interdiction version of metric TSP.
For a connected, undirected and weighted graph G = (V, E), the problem of finding the k most vital edges of G with respect to minimum spanning tree is to find k edges in G whose removal will cause greatest weight increase in the minimum spanning tree of the remaining graph. This problem is known to be N P-hard for arbitrary k. In this paper, we first describe a simple exact algorithm for this problem, based on the approach of edge replacement in the minimum spanning tree of G. Next we present polynomial-time randomized algorithms that produce optimal and approximate solutions to this problem. For |V| = n and |E| = m, our algorithm producing optimal solution has a time complexity of O(mn) with probability of success at least e - √ k-2 k-2 , which is 0.90 fork > 200 and asymptotically 1 when k goes to infinity. The algorithm producing approximate solution runs in O(mn+nk 2 log k) time with probability of success at least 1- 1 4 (2 n ) k 2-2 , which is 0.998 for k > 10, and produces solution within factor 2 to the optimal one. Finally we show that both of our randomized algorithms can be easily parallelized. On a CREW PRAM, the first algorithm runs in O(n) time using n 2 processors, and the second algorithm runs in O(log 2 n) time using mn log n processors and hence is RNC.