Minimum Label s-t Cut has Large Integrality Gaps

Given a graph G=(V,E) with a label set L = {l1, l2, ..., l_q}, in which each edge has a label from L, a source s in V, and a sink t in V, the Min Label s-t Cut problem asks to pick a set L' subseteq L of labels with minimized cardinality, such that the removal of all edges with labels in L' from G disconnects s and t. This problem comes from many applications in real world, for example, information security and computer networks. In this paper, we study two linear programs for Min Label s-t Cut, proving that both of them have large integrality gaps, namely, Omega(m) and Omega(m^{{1/3-epsilon})} for the respective linear programs, where m is the number of edges in the graph and epsilon > 0 is any arbitrarily small constant. As Min Label s-t Cut is NP-hard and the linear programming technique is a main approach to design approximation algorithms, our results give negative answer to the hope that designs better approximation algorithms for Min Label s-t Cut that purely rely on linear programming.