Flows are maximal if there is no augmenting path

maths

Statement

Lemma

Given a flow network $(G, c, s, t)$ a flow $f$ is maximal if there is no path from $s$ to $t$ in the residual network $(G^f, c^f, s, t)$.

Proof

This follows from the proof of the Max-flow min-cut Theorem.

In particularly Claim 2 in the proof of the main result gives us that value of $f$ is the capacity of some st-cut. With the corollary of Claim 1 being that for these to be equal they must be maximal/minimal in their own respects.