Listing minimal edge-covers of intersecting families with applications to connectivity problems

AbstractLet G=(V,E) be a directed/undirected graph, let s,t∈V, and let F be an intersecting family on V (that is, X∩Y,X∪Y∈F for any intersecting X,Y∈F) so that s∈X and t∉X for every X∈F. An edge set I⊆E is an edge-cover of F if for every X∈F there is an edge in I from X to V−X. We show that minimal edge-covers of F can be listed with polynomial delay, provided that, for any I⊆E the minimal member of the residual family FI of the sets in F not covered by I can be computed in polynomial time. As an application, we show that minimal undirected Steiner networks, and minimal k-connected and k-outconnected spanning subgraphs of a given directed/undirected graph, can be listed in incremental polynomial time