Abstract: For a connected graph, a vertex separator is a set of vertices whose removal creates at least two components and a minimum vertex separator is a vertex separator of least cardinality. The vertex connectivity refers to the size of a minimum vertex separator. For a connected graph with vertex connectivity , the connectivity augmentation refers to a set of edges whose augmentation to increases its vertex connectivity by one. A minimum connectivity augmentation of is the one in which is minimum. In this paper, we focus our attention on connectivity augmentation of trees. Towards this end, we present a new sequential algorithm for biconnectivity augmentation in trees by simplifying the algorithm reported in cite{nsn}. The simplicity is achieved with the help of edge contraction tool. This tool helps us in getting a recursive subproblem preserving all connectivity information. Subsequently, we present a parallel algorithm to obtain a minimum connectivity augmentation set in trees. Our parallel algorithm essentially follows the overall structure of sequential algorithm. Our implementation is based on CREW PRAM model with processors, where refers to the maximum degree of a tree. We also show that our parallel algorithm is optimal whose processor-time product is O(n) where is the number of vertices of a tree, which is an improvement over the parallel algorithm reported in cite{hsu}.
