Engineering an external memory minimum spanning tree algorithm

Abstract

We develop an external memory algorithm for computing minimum spanning trees. The algorithm is considerably simpler than previously known external memory algorithms for this problem and needs a factor of at least four less I/Os for realistic inputs. Our implementation indicates that this algorithm processes graphs only limited by the disk capacity of most current machines in time no more than a factor 2-5 of a good internal algorithm with sufficient memory space. © 2004 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.