The Laplacian spectral radius of some bipartite graphs

In this paper, we study the largest Laplacian spectral radius of the bipartite graphs with n vertices and k cut edges and the bicyclic bipartite graphs, respectively. Identifying the center of a star K_1,k and one vertex of degree n of K_m,n, we denote by the resulting graph. We show that the graph (1?k?n-4) is the unique graph with the largest Laplacian spectral radius among the bipartite graphs with n vertices and k cut edges, and (n?7) is the unique graph with the largest Laplacian spectral radius among all the bicyclic bipartite graphs.     

A new lower bound on the number of trivially noncontractible edges in contraction critical 5-connected graphs

An edge of a k-connected graph is said to be k-contractible if its contraction results in a k-connected graph. A k-connected non-complete graph with no k-contractible edge, is called contraction critical k-connected. An edge of a k-connected graph is called trivially noncontractible if its two end vertices have a common neighbor of degree k. Ando [K. Ando, Trivially noncontractible edges in a contraction critically 5-connected graph, Discrete Math. 293 (2005) 61-72] proved that a contraction critical 5-connected graph on n vertices has at least n/2 trivially noncontractible edges. Li [Xiangjun Li, Some results about the contractible edge and the domination number of graphs, Guilin, Guangxi Normal University, 2006 (in Chinese)] improved the lower bound to n+1. In this paper, the bound is improved to the statement that any contraction critical 5-connected graph on n vertices has at least trivially noncontractible edges.     

A polynomial algorithm to compute the minimum degree spanning trees of directed acyclic graphs with applications to the broadcast problem

In this paper, we focus on the directed minimum degree spanning tree problem and the minimum time broadcast problem. Firstly, we propose a polynomial time algorithm for the minimum degree spanning tree problem in directed acyclic graphs. The algorithm starts with an arbitrary spanning tree, and iteratively reduces the number of vertices of maximum degree. We can prove that the algorithm must reduce a vertex of the maximum degree for each phase, and finally result in an optimal tree. The algorithm terminates in O(mnlogn) time, where m and n are the numbers of edges and vertices of the graph, respectively. Moreover, we apply the new algorithm to the minimum time broadcast problem. Two consequences for directed acyclic graphs are: (1) the problem under the vertex-disjoint paths mode can be approximated within a factor of of the optimum in O(mnlogn)-time; (2) the problem under the edge-disjoint paths mode can be approximated within a factor of O(Δ^*/logΔ^*) of the optimum in O(mnlogn)-time, where Δ^* is the minimum k such that there is a spanning tree of the graph with maximum degree k.     

Chromatic capacity and graph operations

The chromatic capacityχ_cap(G) of a graph G is the largest k for which there exists a k-coloring of the edges of G such that, for every coloring of the vertices of G with the same colors, some edge is colored the same as both its vertices. We prove that there is an unbounded function f:N→N such that χ_cap(G)?f(χ(G)) for almost every graph G, where χ denotes the chromatic number. We show that for any positive integers n and k with k?n/2 there exists a graph G with χ(G)=n and χ_cap(G)=n-k, extending a result of Greene. We obtain bounds on that are tight as r→∞, where is the complete n-partite graph with r vertices in each part. Finally, for any positive integers p and q we construct a graph G with χ_cap(G)+1=χ(G)=p that contains no odd cycles of length less than q.     

The Erdös-Sós conjecture for spiders

A classical result on extremal graph theory is the Erdös-Gallai theorem: if a graph on n vertices has more than edges, then it contains a path of k edges. Motivated by the result, Erdös and Sós conjectured that under the same condition, the graph should contain every tree of k edges. A spider is a rooted tree in which each vertex has degree one or two, except for the root. A leg of a spider is a path from the root to a vertex of degree one. Thus, a path is a spider of 1 or 2 legs. From the motivation, it is natural to consider spiders of 3 legs. In this paper, we prove that if a graph on n vertices has more than edges, then it contains every k-edge spider of 3 legs, and also, every k-edge spider with no leg of length more than 4, which strengthens a result of Wo?niak on spiders of diameter at most 4.     

Noncrossing Hamiltonian paths in geometric graphs

A geometric graph is a graph embedded in the plane in such a way that vertices correspond to points in general position and edges correspond to segments connecting the appropriate points. A noncrossing Hamiltonian path in a geometric graph is a Hamiltonian path which does not contain any intersecting pair of edges. In the paper, we study a problem asked by Micha Perles: determine the largest number h(n) such that when we remove any set of h(n) edges from any complete geometric graph on n vertices, the resulting graph still has a noncrossing Hamiltonian path. We prove that . We also establish several results related to special classes of geometric graphs. Let h₁(n) denote the largest number such that when we remove edges of an arbitrary complete subgraph of size at most h₁(n) from a complete geometric graph on n vertices the resulting graph still has a noncrossing Hamiltonian path. We prove that . Let h₂(n) denote the largest number such that when we remove an arbitrary star with at most h₂(n) edges from a complete geometric graph on n vertices the resulting graph still has a noncrossing Hamiltonian path. We show that h₂(n)=⌈n/2⌉-1. Further we prove that when we remove any matching from a complete geometric graph the resulting graph will have a noncrossing Hamiltonian path.     

On the Laplacian coefficients of bicyclic graphs

Let G be a graph of order n and let be the characteristic polynomial of its Laplacian matrix. Generalizing the approach in [D. Stevanovi?, A. Ili?, On the Laplacian coefficients of unicyclic graphs, Linear Algebra and its Applications 430 (2009) 2290-2300.] on graph transformations, we show that among all bicyclic graphs of order n, the kth coefficient c_k is smallest when the graph is B_n (obtained from C₄ by adding one edge connecting two non-adjacent vertices and adding n−4 pendent vertices attached to the vertex of degree 3).     

A minimum broadcast graph on 26 vertices

Broadcasting is the process of information dissemination in a communication network in which a message, originated by one member, is transmitted to all members of the network. A broadcast graph is a graph which permits broadcasting from any originator in minimum time. The broadcast function B(n) is the minimum number of edges in any broadcast graph on n vertices. In this paper, we construct a broadcast graph on 26 vertices with 42 edges to prove B(26) = 42.     

Large induced subgraphs with equated maximum degree

For a graph G, denote by f_k(G) the smallest number of vertices that must be deleted from G so that the remaining induced subgraph has its maximum degree shared by at least k vertices. It is not difficult to prove that there are graphs for which already , where n is the number of vertices of G. It is conjectured that for every fixed k. We prove this for k=2,3. While the proof for the case k=2 is easy, already the proof for the case k=3 is considerably more difficult. The case k=4 remains open.A related parameter, s_k(G), denotes the maximum integer m so that there are k vertex-disjoint subgraphs of G, each with m vertices, and with the same maximum degree. We prove that for every fixed k, s_k(G)≥n/k−o(n). The proof relies on probabilistic arguments.     

Graphs with maximal signless Laplacian spectral radius

By the signless Laplacian of a (simple) graph G we mean the matrix Q(G)=D(G)+A(G), where A(G),D(G) denote respectively the adjacency matrix and the diagonal matrix of vertex degrees of G. It is known that connected graphs G that maximize the signless Laplacian spectral radius ρ(Q(G)) over all connected graphs with given numbers of vertices and edges are (degree) maximal. For a maximal graph G with n vertices and r distinct vertex degrees δ_r>δ_r-1>?>δ₁, it is proved that ρ(Q(G))<ρ(Q(H)) for some maximal graph H with n+1 (respectively, n) vertices and the same number of edges as G if either G has precisely two dominating vertices or there exists an integer such that δ_i+δ_r+1-i?n+1 (respectively, δ_i+δ_r+1-i?δ_l+δ_r-l+1). Graphs that maximize ρ(Q(G)) over the class of graphs with m edges and m-k vertices, for k=0,1,2,3, are completely determined.     

Complexity results in graph reconstruction

We investigate the relative complexity of the graph isomorphism problem (GI) and problems related to the reconstruction of a graph from its vertex-deleted or edge-deleted subgraphs (in particular, deck checking (DC) and legitimate deck (LD) problems). We show that these problems are closely related for all amounts c?1 of deletion:

(1)

, , , and .

(2)

For all k?2, and .

(3)

For all k?2, .

(4)

.

(5)

For all k?2, .

For many of these results, even the c=1 case was not previously known.Similar to the definition of reconstruction numbers vrn_∃(G) [F. Harary, M. Plantholt, The graph reconstruction number, J. Graph Theory 9 (1985) 451-454] and ern_∃(G) (see [J. Lauri, R. Scapellato Topics in Graph Automorphism and Reconstruction, London Mathematical Society, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, p. 120]), we introduce two new graph parameters, vrn_∀(G) and ern_∀(G), and give an example of a family {G_n}_n?4 of graphs on n vertices for which vrn_∃(G_n)<vrn_∀(G_n). For every k?2 and n?1, we show that there exists a collection of k graphs on (2^k-1+1)n+k vertices with 2ⁿ 1-vertex-preimages, i.e., one has families of graph collections whose number of 1-vertex-preimages is huge relative to the size of the graphs involved.     

Approximating maximum edge 2-coloring in simple graphs

We present a polynomial-time approximation algorithm for legally coloring as many edges of a given simple graph as possible using two colors. It achieves an approximation ratio of roughly 0.842 and runs in O(n³m) time, where n (respectively, m) is the number of vertices (respectively, edges) in the input graph. The previously best ratio achieved by a polynomial-time approximation algorithm was .     

A note on edge-graceful spectra of the square of paths

For a simple path P_r on r vertices, the square of P_r is the graph on the same set of vertices of P_r, and where every pair of vertices of distance two or less in P_r is connected by an edge. Given a (p,q)-graph G with p vertices and q edges, and a nonnegative integer k, G is said to be k-edge-graceful if the edges can be labeled bijectively by k,k+1,…,k+q−1, so that the induced vertex sums are pairwise distinct, where the vertex sum at a vertex is the sum of the labels of all edges incident to such a vertex, modulo the number of vertices p. We call the set of all such k the edge-graceful spectrum of G, and denote it by egI(G). In this article, the edge-graceful spectrum for the square of paths is completely determined for odd r.     

Eigenvalues and forbidden subgraphs I

Suppose a graph G have n vertices, m edges, and t triangles. Letting λ_n(G) be the largest eigenvalue of the Laplacian of G and μ_n(G) be the smallest eigenvalue of its adjacency matrix, we prove that

     

Note on the energy of regular graphs

For a simple graph G, the energy E(G) is defined as the sum of the absolute values of all the eigenvalues of its adjacency matrix A(G). Let n,m, respectively, be the number of vertices and edges of G. One well-known inequality is that , where λ₁ is the spectral radius. If G is k-regular, we have . Denote . Balakrishnan [R. Balakrishnan, The energy of a graph, Linear Algebra Appl. 387 (2004) 287-295] proved that for each ?>0, there exist infinitely many n for each of which there exists a k-regular graph G of order n with k<n-1 and , and proposed an open problem that, given a positive integer n?3, and ?>0, does there exist a k-regular graph G of order n such that . In this paper, we show that for each ?>0, there exist infinitely many such n that . Moreover, we construct another class of simpler graphs which also supports the first assertion that .     

A result on the total colouring of powers of cycles

The total chromatic number χ_T(G) is the least number of colours needed to colour the vertices and edges of a graph G such that no incident or adjacent elements (vertices or edges) receive the same colour. The Total Colouring Conjecture (TCC) states that for every simple graph G, χ_T(G)?Δ(G)+2. This work verifies the TCC for powers of cycles even and 2<k<n/2, showing that there exists and can be polynomially constructed a (Δ(G)+2)-total colouring for these graphs.     

Note on robust critical graphs with large odd girth

A graph G is (k+1)-critical if it is not k-colourable but G−e is k-colourable for any edge e∈E(G). In this paper we show that for any integers k≥3 and l≥5 there exists a constant c=c(k,l)>0, such that for all , there exists a (k+1)-critical graph G on n vertices with and odd girth at least ?, which can be made (k−1)-colourable only by the omission of at least cn² edges.     

Extra edge connectivity and isoperimetric edge connectivity

An edge set S of a connected graph G is a k-extra edge cut, if G-S is no longer connected, and each component of G-S has at least k vertices. The cardinality of a minimum k-extra edge cut, denoted by λ_k(G), is the k-extra edge connectivity of G. The kth isoperimetric edge connectivity γ_k(G) is defined as , where ω(U) is the number of edges with one end in U and the other end in . Write β_k(G)=min{ω(U):U⊂V(G),|U|=k}. A graph G with is said to be γ_k-optimal.In this paper, we first prove that λ_k(G)=γ_k(G) if G is a regular graph with girth g?k/2. Then, we show that except for K_3,3 and K₄, a 3-regular vertex/edge transitive graph is γ_k-optimal if and only if its girth is at least k+2. Finally, we prove that a connected d-regular edge-transitive graph with d?6e_k(G)/k is γ_k-optimal, where e_k(G) is the maximum number of edges in a subgraph of G with order k.     

Independence polynomials of k-tree related graphs

An independent set of a graph G is a set of pairwise non-adjacent vertices. Let α(G) denote the cardinality of a maximum independent set and f_s(G) for 0≤s≤α(G) denote the number of independent sets of s vertices. The independence polynomial defined first by Gutman and Harary has been the focus of considerable research recently. Wingard bounded the coefficients f_s(T) for trees T with n vertices: for s≥2. We generalize this result to bounds for a very large class of graphs, maximal k-degenerate graphs, a class which includes all k-trees. Additionally, we characterize all instances where our bounds are achieved, and determine exactly the independence polynomials of several classes of k-tree related graphs. Our main theorems generalize several related results known before.