A Matter of Degree: Improved Approximation Algorithms for Degree-Bounded Minimum Spanning Trees

  • Authors:
  • J. Könemann;R. Ravi

  • Affiliations:
  • -;-

  • Venue:
  • SIAM Journal on Computing
  • Year:
  • 2002

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Abstract

In this paper, we present a new bicriteria approximation algorithm for the degree-bounded minimum spanning tree problem. In this problem, we are given an undirected graph, a nonnegative cost function on the edges, and a positive integer B*, and the goal is to find a minimum-cost spanning tree T with maximum degree at most B*. In an n-node graph, our algorithm finds a spanning tree with maximum degree O(B*+logn) and cost O(optB*), where optB* is the minimum cost of any spanning tree whose maximum degree is at most B*. Our algorithm uses ideas from Lagrangean duality. We show how a set of optimum Lagrangean multipliers yields bounds on both the degree and the cost of the computed solution.