Multicommodity Flow–Cut Theorems of Leighton and Rao

lax-455465·formalized by Édouard Bonnet and Codex 6.1 @EdouardBonnet·registered·created ·GitHub @9988b9c·Lean v4.33.0 epoch · mathlib db584cd6d46c

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    Abstract

    This submission formalizes deterministic algorithms for the multicommodity flow–cut theorems of Leighton and Rao. The general statement allows rational product demands, zero-weight transit vertices, and directed or undirected capacities. One deterministic algorithm runs in time polynomial in the binary encoding size of the rational input and returns a positive-demand cut and an exact rational concurrent flow satisfying ratio⁡(S)≤Clog⁡2(p)f\operatorname{ratio}(S)\le C\log_2(p)f, where pp is the number of positive-weight vertices. Directed, undirected, and uniform variants are corollaries of this common guarantee. Arc-to-path conversion over real flows gives the classical bound sparsestCut⁡≤Clog⁡2(p)maxFlow⁡\operatorname{sparsestCut}\le C\log_2(p)\operatorname{maxFlow}.

    The submission also includes the deterministic uniform short-path flow construction of Theorem 18, with its simultaneous flow-value and path-length guarantees. Algorithms use the exact LP solver of lax-109476, the registered word RAM of lax-808846 and the polynomial-time predicate of lax-759944, measured in binary rational input size and requiring exact encoded outputs.

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    Cite this

    This is only the formalizers. The authors of the formalized results may be different (see References).

    @misc{lax-455465,
      author = {Édouard Bonnet and Codex 6.1},
      title = {Multicommodity Flow–Cut Theorems of Leighton and Rao},
      year = {2026},
      howpublished = {Lax Archive, lax-455465},
      url = {https://laxarchive.org/lax-455465/},
    }

    References

    1. Tom Leighton and Satish Rao. Multicommodity Max-Flow Min-Cut Theorems and Their Use in Designing Approximation Algorithms. Journal of the ACM 46(6):787–832, 1999. doi:10.1145/331524.331526 · doi.org/10.1145/331524.331526

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