Good r-divisions Imply Optimal Amortized Decremental Biconnectivity

Abstract

We present a data structure that, given a graph G of n vertices and m edges, and a suitable pair of nested r-divisions of G, preprocesses G in \(O(m+n)\) time and handles any series of edge-deletions in O(m) total time while answering queries to pairwise biconnectivity in worst-case O(1) time. In case the vertices are not biconnected, the data structure can return a cutvertex separating them in worst-case O(1) time. As an immediate consequence, this gives optimal amortized decremental biconnectivity, 2-edge connectivity, and connectivity for large classes of graphs, including planar graphs and other minor free graphs.