A distributed algorithm for knot detection in a distributed graph

Abstract

Knot detection in a distributed graph is an important problem and finds applications in several areas such as packet switching, distributed simulation, and distributed database systems. The paper presents a distributed algorithm to efficiently detect the existence of a knot in a distributed graph. The algorithm requires 2e messages and a delay or 2(d+1) message hops to detect if a node in a distributed graph is in a knot (e is the number of edges in the reachable part of the distributed graph and d is its diameter). A significant advantage of this algorithm is that it not only detects if a node is in a knot but also finds exactly which nodes are involved in the knot.