MC224 Parallel and Distributed Algorithms 31st Jan, 2023

Lec. 10: Lowest Common Ancestor

Lecturer: Anuj Tawari Scribe: 202103027, 202103031

10.1 Introduction
This method finds the common ancestor between two nodes (u,v).

10.2 Approach
• Input: Two nodes u,v of a tree.

• Output: The ancestor of u,v is farthest from the root.

• Solution:

– Compute the Euler tour.

– Decide if v is the ancestor of u.
– Find the leftmost and rightmost occurrence of every vertex in the Euler path.
– Construct an Euler array, when we visit (u,v) in the Euler tour write v in the Euler
array (ordering according to visiting).
l(u) : rank of (p(u),u) in the Euler tour.
r(u) : rank of (u,p(u)) in the Euler tour.
– Now we have l(u),r(u),l(v),r(v).
– v is the ancestor of u if and only if:
l(v) < l(u) < r(v)
– Either
r(v) < l(u)
r(u) < l(v)
if this condition is satisfied then u,v don’t have an ancestor-descendant relationship.
– In short, we are traversing through all nodes between r(v) and l(u) and the lowest level
node will be the ancestor.
– Construction:
∗ Construct Euler tour, find the leftmost and the rightmost occurrence of every vertex.
∗ Case-1: r(v) < l(v).
find the vertex of the lowest level between r(v) and l(u).
∗ For that we need the level of every vertex and the occurrence of every vertex.

10-1
– Find LCA(g,j):

Here we label each node in the euler tour in terms of (index,level) form.

10-2
Now the l(g) is 12 and l(j) is 15. Therefore, r(g) = 12 and r(j) = 15. Here r(g) < l(j)

10-3
Hence the LCA(g,j) is C.

10-4
• Range Minima Problem:

• Store prefix minima, suffix minima

Prefix minima : minimum of first i many numbers for every i.
Suffix minima : minimum of last i many numbers for every i.

• Store the prefix and suffix minima

at every step. Suffix will store : min l(j),....,n
Prefix will store min 1,....,r(g)

• Compute prefix and suffix minima for every prefix and suffix to combine the range.

10-5