Paper 1, Section I, H

Optimization
Part IB, 2015

(a) Consider a network with vertices in V={1,,n}V=\{1, \ldots, n\} and directed edges (i,j)(i, j) in EV×VE \subseteq V \times V. Suppose that 1 is the source and nn is the sink. Let Cij,0<Cij<C_{i j}, 0<C_{i j}<\infty, be the capacity of the edge from vertex ii to vertex jj for (i,j)E(i, j) \in E. Let a cut be a partition of V={1,,n}V=\{1, \ldots, n\} into SS and V\SV \backslash S with 1S1 \in S and nV\Sn \in V \backslash S. Define the capacity of the cut SS. Write down the maximum flow problem. Prove that the maximum flow is bounded above by the minimum cut capacity.

(b) Find the maximum flow from the source to the sink in the network below, where the directions and capacities of the edges are shown. Explain your reasoning.