Fully Sequential and Distributed Dynamic Algorithms for Minimum Spanning Trees

In this paper, we present a fully-dynamic distributed algorithm for maintaining a minimum spanning tree on general graphs with positive real edge weights. The goal of a dynamic MST algorithm is to update e ciently the minimum spanning tree after dynamic changes like edge weight changes, rather than having to recompute it from scatch each time. The rst part of the paper surveys various algorithms available today both in sequential and distributed environments to solve static MST problem. We also present some of the e cient sequential algorithms for computing dynamic MST like the Frederickson’s algorithm and Eppstein’s sparsi cation technique. Lastly we present our new sequential and distributed algorithms for dynamic MST problem. To our knowledge, this is the rst of the distributed algorithms for computing dynamic MSTs.