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I'd like to ask a question about MAX CUT and MIN CUT on graphs with unit edge-weight. I know that MAX CUT is NP-Hard, but MIN CUT is in P (i think)?

Barahona, in 1982, showed (Lemma 1) finding a cut of at least k on a unit-weight graph is equivalent to finding a cut of at most -k on a graph in which each edge is replaced with a chain of edges, each of weight +1 except for one with weight -1. http://yaroslavvb.com/papers/barahona-on.pdf

Is this not technically MIN CUT on that extended graph? Wouldn't this show that MAX CUT can be reduced to MIN CUT, and therefore belong in P or is there something about MIN CUT I don't understand properly?

Raphael
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SamTheTomato
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1 Answers1

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Both problems you mention have the stated complexity only when edge weights are non-negative. With these constraints, the reduction you describe no longer works.

Yuval Filmus
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