Medians in median graphs and their cube complexes in linear time

The median of a set of vertices P of a graph G is the set of all vertices x of G minimizing the sum of distances from x to all vertices of P. In this paper, we present a linear time algorithm to compute medians in median graphs. We also present a linear time algorithm to compute medians in the associated ℓ1-cube complexes. Our algorithm is based on the majority rule characterization of medians in median graphs and on a fast computation of parallelism classes of edges (Θ-classes) via Lexicographic Breadth First Search (LexBFS). We show that any LexBFS ordering of the vertices of a median graph satisfies the following fellow traveler property: the parents of any two adjacent vertices are also adjacent. Using the fast computation of the Θ-classes, we also compute the Wiener index (total distance) in linear time and the distance matrix in optimal quadratic time.