Theoretical Computer Science
graph-theory examples multicommodity-flow
Updated Wed, 25 May 2022 02:17:10 GMT

Fractional but not integer multi-commodity minimum cost flow


I'm searching for an example digraph for the multi-commodity minimum cost flow problem with integer demand. There shouldn't be an integer but fractional optimal solution. I found here a similar question but it considers an undirected graph or to be precise I don't catch Andreas Bjrklund's last comment.

Can anyone help? Thank you in advance!




Solution

You can use the example for an undirected edge with unit capacities, but replace each undirected edge from A to B with a set of directed edges that look like this.

enter image description here

Each edge has a unit capacity. And if you have $x$ units of flow from A to B and $y$ units of flow from B to A, you can route it as long as $x+y \leq 1$.

This is the gadget referred to in Andreas Bjrklund's comment.







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