On the reduced signless Laplacian spectrum of a degree maximal graph

For a (simple) graph G, the signless Laplacian of G is the matrix A(G)+D(G), where A(G) is the adjacency matrix and D(G) is the diagonal matrix of vertex degrees of G; the reduced signless Laplacian of G is the matrix Δ(G)+B(G), where B(G) is the reduced adjacency matrix of G and Δ(G) is the diagonal matrix whose diagonal entries are the common degrees for vertices belonging to the same neighborhood equivalence class of G. A graph is said to be (degree) maximal if it is connected and its degree sequence is not majorized by the degree sequence of any other connected graph. For a maximal graph, we obtain a formula for the characteristic polynomial of its reduced signless Laplacian and use the formula to derive a localization result for its reduced signless Laplacian eigenvalues, and to compare the signless Laplacian spectral radii of two well-known maximal graphs. We also obtain a necessary condition for a maximal graph to have maximal signless Laplacian spectral radius among all connected graphs with given numbers of vertices and edges.     

Reconstructing the degree sequence and the number of components of an infinite graph

We prove that the degree sequence of an infinite graph is reconstructible from its family of vertex-deleted subgraphs. Furthermore, as another result concerning the reconstruction of infinite graphs, we prove that the number c(G) of components of an infinite graph G is reconstructible if there is at least one vertex x in G with the following property: If x is deleted from G, then the component of G containing x splits into a finite number of components. In particular, this implies that c(G) is reconstructible if there is at least one vertex of finite degree in G.     

The vertex linear arboricity of distance graphs

A distance graph is a graph G(R,D) with the set of all points of the real line as vertex set and two vertices u,v∈R are adjacent if and only if |u-v|∈D where the distance set D is a subset of the positive real numbers. Here, the vertex linear arboricity of G(R,D) is determined when D is an interval between 1 and δ. In particular, the vertex linear arboricity of integer distance graphs G(D) is discussed, too.     

On a conjecture of the Randi? index

The Randi? index of a graph G is defined as , where d(u) is the degree of vertex u and the summation goes over all pairs of adjacent vertices u, v. A conjecture on R(G) for connected graph G is as follows: R(G)≥r(G)−1, where r(G) denotes the radius of G. We proved that the conjecture is true for biregular graphs, connected graphs with order n≤10 and tricyclic graphs.     

Whiskers and sequentially Cohen-Macaulay graphs

We investigate how to modify a simple graph G combinatorially to obtain a sequentially Cohen-Macaulay graph. We focus on adding configurations of whiskers to G, where to add a whisker one adds a new vertex and an edge connecting this vertex to an existing vertex of G. We give various sufficient conditions and necessary conditions on a subset S of the vertices of G so that the graph G∪W(S), obtained from G by adding a whisker to each vertex in S, is a sequentially Cohen-Macaulay graph. For instance, we show that if S is a vertex cover of G, then G∪W(S) is a sequentially Cohen-Macaulay graph. On the other hand, we show that if G?S is not sequentially Cohen-Macaulay, then G∪W(S) is not a sequentially Cohen-Macaulay graph. Our work is inspired by and generalizes a result of Villarreal on the use of whiskers to get Cohen-Macaulay graphs.     

Upper bounds on vertex distinguishing chromatic index of some Halin graphs

A vertex distinguishing edge coloring of a graph G is a proper edge coloring of G such that any pair of vertices has the distinct sets of colors. The minimum number of colors required for a vertex distinguishing edge coloring of a graph G is denoted by ???? _s (G). In this paper, we obtained upper bounds on the vertex distinguishing chromatic index of 3-regular Halin graphs and Halin graphs with ??(G) ?? 4, respectively.     

Super-connected edge transitive graphs

A graph G is said to be super-connected if any minimum cut of G isolates a vertex. In a previous work due to the second author of this note, super-connected graphs which are both vertex transitive and edge transitive are characterized. In this note, we generalize the characterization to edge transitive graphs which are not necessarily vertex transitive, showing that the only irreducible edge transitive graphs which are not super-connected are the cycles C_n(n?6) and the line graph of the 3-cube, where irreducible means the graph has no vertices with the same neighbor set. Furthermore, we give some sufficient conditions for reducible edge transitive graphs to be super-connected.     

Vertex insertion approximates the crossing number of apex graphs

An apex graph is a graph G from which only one vertex v has to be removed to make it planar. We show that the crossing number of such G can be approximated up to a factor of Δ(G−v)⋅d(v)/2 by solving the vertex inserting problem, i.e. inserting a vertex plus incident edges into an optimally chosen planar embedding of a planar graph. Since the latter problem can be solved in polynomial time, this establishes the first polynomial fixed-factor approximation algorithm for the crossing number problem of apex graphs with bounded degree.Furthermore, we extend this result by showing that the optimal solution for inserting multiple edges or vertices into a planar graph also approximates the crossing number of the resulting graph.     

Hamiltonian properties of locally connected graphs with bounded vertex degree

We consider the existence of Hamiltonian cycles for the locally connected graphs with a bounded vertex degree. For a graph G, let Δ(G) and δ(G) denote the maximum and minimum vertex degrees, respectively. We explicitly describe all connected, locally connected graphs with Δ(G)?4. We show that every connected, locally connected graph with Δ(G)=5 and δ(G)?3 is fully cycle extendable which extends the results of Kikust [P.B. Kikust, The existence of the Hamiltonian circuit in a regular graph of degree 5, Latvian Math. Annual 16 (1975) 33-38] and Hendry [G.R.T. Hendry, A strengthening of Kikust’s theorem, J. Graph Theory 13 (1989) 257-260] on full cycle extendability of the connected, locally connected graphs with the maximum vertex degree bounded by 5. Furthermore, we prove that problem Hamilton Cycle for the locally connected graphs with Δ(G)?7 is NP-complete.     

Circular vertex arboricity

The vertex arboricity va(G) of graph G is defined as the minimum of subsets in a partition of the vertex set of G so that each subset induces an acyclic subgraph and has been widely studied. We define the concept of circular vertex arboricity va_c(G) of graph G, which is a natural generalization of vertex arboricity. We give some basic properties of circular vertex arboricity and study the circular vertex arboricity of planar graphs.     

Graham's pebbling conjecture on products of cycles

Chung defined a pebbling move on a graph G to be the removal of two pebbles from one vertex and the addition of one pebble to an adjacent vertex. The pebbling number of a connected graph is the smallest number f(G) such that any distribution of f(G) pebbles on G allows one pebble to be moved to any specified, but arbitrary vertex by a sequence of pebbling moves. Graham conjectured that for any connected graphs G and H, f(G×H)≤ f(G)f(H). We prove Graham's conjecture when G is a cycle for a variety of graphs H, including all cycles. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 42: 141–154, 2003     

Representing edge intersection graphs of paths on degree 4 trees

Let P be a collection of nontrivial simple paths on a host tree T. The edge intersection graph of P, denoted by EPT(P), has vertex set that corresponds to the members of P, and two vertices are joined by an edge if and only if the corresponding members of P share at least one common edge in T. An undirected graph G is called an edge intersection graph of paths in a tree if G=EPT(P) for some P and T. The EPT graphs are useful in network applications. Scheduling undirected calls in a tree network or assigning wavelengths to virtual connections in an optical tree network are equivalent to coloring its EPT graph.An undirected graph G is chordal if every cycle in G of length greater than 3 possesses a chord. Chordal graphs correspond to vertex intersection graphs of subtrees on a tree. An undirected graph G is weakly chordal if every cycle of length greater than 4 in G and in its complement possesses a chord. It is known that the EPT graphs restricted to host trees of vertex degree 3 are precisely the chordal EPT graphs. We prove a new analogous result that weakly chordal EPT graphs are precisely the EPT graphs with host tree restricted to degree 4. Moreover, this provides an algorithm to reduce a given EPT representation of a weakly chordal EPT graph to an EPT representation on a degree 4 tree. Finally, we raise a number of intriguing open questions regarding related families of graphs.     

Unoriented Laplacian maximizing graphs are degree maximal

A connected graph is said to be unoriented Laplacian maximizing if the spectral radius of its unoriented Laplacian matrix attains the maximum among all connected graphs with the same number of vertices and the same number of edges. A graph is said to be threshold (maximal) if its degree sequence is not majorized by the degree sequence of any other graph (and, in addition, the graph is connected). It is proved that an unoriented Laplacian maximizing graph is maximal and also that there are precisely two unoriented Laplacian maximizing graphs of a given order and with nullity 3. Our treatment depends on the following known characterization: a graph G is threshold (maximal) if and only if for every pair of vertices u,v of G, the sets N(u)?{v},N(v)?{u}, where N(u) denotes the neighbor set of u in G, are comparable with respect to the inclusion relation (and, in addition, the graph is connected). A conjecture about graphs that maximize the unoriented Laplacian matrix among all graphs with the same number of vertices and the same number of edges is also posed.     

Zeta functions of line, middle, total graphs of a graph and their coverings

We consider the (Ihara) zeta functions of line graphs, middle graphs and total graphs of a regular graph and their (regular or irregular) covering graphs. Let L(G), M(G) and T(G) denote the line, middle and total graph of G, respectively. We show that the line, middle and total graph of a (regular and irregular, respectively) covering of a graph G is a (regular and irregular, respectively) covering of L(G), M(G) and T(G), respectively. For a regular graph G, we express the zeta functions of the line, middle and total graph of any (regular or irregular) covering of G in terms of the characteristic polynomial of the covering. Also, the complexities of the line, middle and total graph of any (regular or irregular) covering of G are computed. Furthermore, we discuss the L-functions of the line, middle and total graph of a regular graph G.     

Graham’s pebbling conjecture on product of thorn graphs of complete graphs

The pebbling number of a graph G, f(G), is the least n such that, no matter how n pebbles are placed on the vertices of G, we can move a pebble to any vertex by a sequence of pebbling moves, each move taking two pebbles off one vertex and placing one on an adjacent vertex. Let p₁,p₂,…,p_n be positive integers and G be such a graph, V(G)=n. The thorn graph of the graph G, with parameters p₁,p₂,…,p_n, is obtained by attaching p_i new vertices of degree 1 to the vertex u_i of the graph G, i=1,2,…,n. Graham conjectured that for any connected graphs G and H, f(G×H)≤f(G)f(H). We show that Graham’s conjecture holds true for a thorn graph of the complete graph with every by a graph with the two-pebbling property. As a corollary, Graham’s conjecture holds when G and H are the thorn graphs of the complete graphs with every .     

The least eigenvalue of graphs with given connectivity

Let G be a simple graph and A(G) be the adjacency matrix of G. The eigenvalues of G are those of A(G). In this paper, we characterize the graphs with the minimal least eigenvalue among all graphs of fixed order with given vertex connectivity or edge connectivity.     

On generalized Petersen graphs labeled with a condition at distance two

An L(2,1)-labeling of graph G is an integer labeling of the vertices in V(G) such that adjacent vertices receive labels which differ by at least two, and vertices which are distance two apart receive labels which differ by at least one. The λ-number of G is the minimum span taken over all L(2,1)-labelings of G. In this paper, we consider the λ-numbers of generalized Petersen graphs. By introducing the notion of a matched sum of graphs, we show that the λ-number of every generalized Petersen graph is bounded from above by 9. We then show that this bound can be improved to 8 for all generalized Petersen graphs with vertex order >12, and, with the exception of the Petersen graph itself, improved to 7 otherwise.     

Vertex and edge PI indices of Cartesian product graphs

The Padmakar-Ivan (PI) index of a graph G is the sum over all edges uv of G of the number of edges which are not equidistant from u and v. In this paper, the notion of vertex PI index of a graph is introduced. We apply this notion to compute an exact expression for the PI index of Cartesian product of graphs. This extends a result by Klavzar [On the PI index: PI-partitions and Cartesian product graphs, MATCH Commun. Math. Comput. Chem. 57 (2007) 573-586] for bipartite graphs. Some important properties of vertex PI index are also investigated.     

Graphs with small boundary

For a pair of vertices x and y in a graph G, we denote by d_G(x,y) the distance between x and y in G. We call x a boundary vertex of y if x and y belong to the same component and d_G(y,v)?d_G(y,x) for each neighbor v of x in G. A boundary vertex of some vertex is simply called a boundary vertex, and the set of boundary vertices in G is called the boundary of G, and is denoted by B(G).In this paper, we investigate graphs with a small boundary. Since a pair of farthest vertices are boundary vertices, |B(G)|?2 for every connected graph G of order at least two. We characterize the graphs with boundary of order at most three. We cannot give a characterization of graphs with exactly four boundary vertices, but we prove that such graphs have minimum degree at most six. Finally, we give an upper bound to the minimum degree of a connected graph G in terms of |B(G)|.     

A note on Roman domination in graphs

Let G=(V,E) be a simple graph. A subset S⊆V is a dominating set of G, if for any vertex u∈V-S, there exists a vertex v∈S such that uv∈E. The domination number of G, γ(G), equals the minimum cardinality of a dominating set. A Roman dominating function on graph G=(V,E) is a function f:V→{0,1,2} satisfying the condition that every vertex v for which f(v)=0 is adjacent to at least one vertex u for which f(u)=2. The weight of a Roman dominating function is the value f(V)=∑_v∈Vf(v). The Roman domination number of a graph G, denoted by γ_R(G), equals the minimum weight of a Roman dominating function on G. In this paper, for any integer k(2?k?γ(G)), we give a characterization of graphs for which γ_R(G)=γ(G)+k, which settles an open problem in [E.J. Cockayne, P.M. Dreyer Jr, S.M. Hedetniemi et al. On Roman domination in graphs, Discrete Math. 278 (2004) 11-22].