Approximation Algorithms for the Bipartite Multi-cut Problem

We introduce the Bipartite Multi-cut problem. This is a generalization of the st-Min-cut problem, is similar to the Multi-cut problem (except for more stringent requirements) and also turns out to be an immediate generalization of the Min UnCut problem. We prove that this problem is NP-hard and then present LP and SDP based approximation algorithms. While the LP algorithm is based on the Garg-Vazirani-Yannakakis algorithm for Multi-cut, the SDP algorithm uses the Structure Theorem of l 2 Metrics.