On disconnected cuts and separators.

Abstract

For a connected graph G=(V,E), a subset U⊆V is called a disconnected cut if U disconnects the graph, and the subgraph induced by U is disconnected as well. A natural condition is to impose that for any u∈U, the subgraph induced by (V∖U)∪{u} is connected. In that case, U is called a minimal disconnected cut. We show that the problem of testing whether a graph has a minimal disconnected cut is NP-complete. We also show that the problem of testing whether a graph has a disconnected cut separating two specified vertices, s and t, is NP-complete.