On the validity of a front-oriented approach to partitioning large sparse graphs with a connectivity constraint

In this paper we consider the problem of partitioning large sparse graphs, such as finite element meshes. The heuristic which is proposed allows to partition into connected and quasi-balanced subgraphs in a reasonable amount of time, while attempting to minimize the number of edge cuts. Here the goal is to build partitions for graphs containing large numbers of nodes and edges, in practice at least 10⁴. Basically, the algorithm relies on the iterative construction of connected subgraphs. This construction is achieved by successively exploring clusters of nodes called fronts. Indeed, a judicious use of fronts ensures the connectivity of the subsets at low cost: it is shown that locally, i.e. for a given subgraph, the complexity of such operations grows at most linearly with the number of edges. Moreover, a few examples are given to illustrate the quality and speed of the heuristic.