On-line coloring of perfect graphs

Lovász, Saks, and Trotter showed that there exists an on-line algorithm which will color any on-linek-colorable graph onn vertices withO(nlog^(2k–3) n/log^(2k–4) n) colors. Vishwanathan showed that at least (log ^k–1 n/k ^k ) colors are needed. While these remain the best known bounds, they give a distressingly weak approximation of the number of colors required. In this article we study the case of perfect graphs. We prove that there exists an on-line algorithm which will color any on-linek-colorable perfect graph onn vertices withn ^10k/loglogn colors and that Vishwanathan's techniques can be slightly modified to show that his lower bound also holds for perfect graphs. This suggests that Vishwanathan's lower bound is far from tight in the general case.Research partially supported by Office of Naval Research grant N00014-90-J-1206.     

On the Value of a Random Minimum Weight Steiner Tree

Consider a complete graph on n vertices with edge weights chosen randomly and independently from an exponential distribution with parameter 1. Fix k vertices and consider the minimum weight Steiner tree which contains these vertices. We prove that with high probability the weight of this tree is (1+o(1))(k-1)(log n-log k)/n when k =o(n) and n.* Research supported in part by NSF grant DSM9971788 Research supported in part by NSF grants DMS-0106589, CCR-9987845 and by the State of New Jersey. Part of this research was done while visiting IBM T. J. Watson Research Center.     

Graphs drawn with few crossings per edge

We show that if a graph ofv vertices can be drawn in the plane so that every edge crosses at mostk>0 others, then its number of edges cannot exceed 4.108kv. Fork4, we establish a better bound, (k+3)(v–2), which is tight fork=1 and 2. We apply these estimates to improve a result of Ajtai et al. and Leighton, providing a general lower bound for the crossing number of a graph in terms of its number of vertices and edges.Supported by NSF grant CCR-94-24398 and PSC-CUNY Research Award 667339.Supported by OTKA-T-020914, OTKA-F-22234 and the Margaret and Herman Sokol Postdoctoral Fellowship Award.     

Triangle Factors In Sparse Pseudo-Random Graphs

The goal of the paper is to initiate research towards a general, Blow-up Lemma type embedding statement for pseudo-random graphs with sublinear degrees. In particular, we show that if the second eigenvalue of a d-regular graph G on 3n vertices is at most cd ³/n ² log n, for some sufficiently small constant c > 0, then G contains a triangle factor. We also show that a fractional triangle factor already exists if < 0.1d ²/n. The latter result is seen to be best possible up to a constant factor, for various values of the degree d = d(n).* Supported by a USA-Israeli BSF grant, by a grant from the Israel Science Foundation and by a Bergmann Memorial Award. Research supported in part by NSF grants DMS-0106589, CCR-9987845 and by the State of New Jersey. Research supported in part by NSF grant DMS 99-70270 and by the joint Berlin/Zurich graduate program Combinatorics, Geometry, Computation, financed by the German Science Foundation (DFG) and ETH Zürich.     

Quasi-planar graphs have a linear number of edges

A graph is calledquasi-planar if it can be drawn in the plane so that no three of its edges are pairwise crossing. It is shown that the maximum number of edges of a quasi-planar graph withn vertices isO(n).Work on this paper by Pankaj K. Agarwal, Boris Aronov and Micha Sharir has been supported by a grant from the U.S.-Israeli Binational Science Foundation. Work on this paper by Pankaj K. Agarwal has also been supported by NSF Grant CCR-93-01259, by an Army Research Office MURI grant DAAH04-96-1-0013, by an NYI award, and by matching funds from Xerox Corporation. Work on this paper by Boris Aronov has also been supported by NSF Grant CCR-92-11541 and by a Sloan Research Fellowship. Work on this paper by János Pach, Richard Pollack, and Micha Sharir has been supported by NSF Grants CCR-91-22103 and CCR-94-24398. Work by János Pach was also supported by Grant OTKA-4269 and by a CUNY Research Award. Work by Richard Pollack was also supported by NSF Grants CCR-94-02640 and DMS-94-00293. Work by Micha Sharir was also supported by NSF Grant CCR-93-11127, by a Max-Planck Research Award, and by grants from the Israel Science Fund administered by the Israeli Academy of Sciences, and the G.I.F., the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development. Part of the work on this paper was done during the participation of the first four authors in the Special Semester on Computational and Combinatorial Geometry organized by the Mathematical Research Institute of Tel Aviv University, Spring 1995.     

Packing directed circuits

We prove a conjecture of Younger, that for every integern0 there exists an integert0 such that for every digraphG, eitherG hasn vertex-disjoint directed circuits, orG can be made acyclic by deleting at mostt vertices.Research partially supported by DONET ECHM contract CHRXCT930090.Research partially supported by DIMACS, by NSF grant DMS-9401981 and by ONR grant N00014-92-J-1965, and partially performed under a consulting agreement with Bellcore.Research partially supported by DIMACS, by Université de Paris VI, by NSF grant DMS-9303761 and by ONR grant N00014-93-1-0325, and partially performed under a consulting agreement with Bellcore.     

An approximate Dirac-type theorem for k-uniform hypergraphs

A k-uniform hypergraph is hamiltonian if for some cyclic ordering of its vertex set, every k consecutive vertices form an edge. In 1952 Dirac proved that if the minimum degree in an n-vertex graph is at least n/2 then the graph is hamiltonian. We prove an approximate version of an analogous result for uniform hypergraphs: For every K ≥ 3 and γ > 0, and for all n large enough, a sufficient condition for an n-vertex k-uniform hypergraph to be hamiltonian is that each (k − 1)-element set of vertices is contained in at least (1/2 + γ)n edges. Research supported by NSF grant DMS-0300529. Research supported by KBN grant 2P03A 015 23 and N201036 32/2546. Part of research performed at Emory University, Atlanta. Research supported by NSF grant DMS-0100784.     

A Lower Bound On The Integrality Gap For Minimum Multicut In Directed Networks

Given a directed edge-weighted graph and k source-sink pairs, the Minimum Directed Multicut Problem is to find an edge subset with minimal weight, that separates each source-sink pair. Determining the minimum multicut in directed or undirected graphs is NP-hard. The fractional version of the minimum multicut problem is dual to the maximum multicommodity flow problem. The integrality gap for an instance of this problem is the ratio of the minimum weight multicut to the minimum weight fractional multicut; trivially this gap is always at least 1 and it is easy to show that it is at most k. In the analogous problem for undirected graphs this upper bound was improved to O(log k).In this paper, for each k an explicit family of examples is presented each with k source-sink pairs for which the integrality gap can be made arbitrarily close to k. This shows that for directed graphs, the trivial upper bound of k can not be improved.* This work was supported in part by NSF grant CCR-9700239 and by DIMACS. This work was done while a postdoctoral fellow at DIMACS.     

The Diameter of a Scale-Free Random Graph

We consider a random graph process in which vertices are added to the graph one at a time and joined to a fixed number m of earlier vertices, where each earlier vertex is chosen with probability proportional to its degree. This process was introduced by Barabási and Albert [3], as a simple model of the growth of real-world graphs such as the world-wide web. Computer experiments presented by Barabási, Albert and Jeong [1,5] and heuristic arguments given by Newman, Strogatz and Watts [23] suggest that after n steps the resulting graph should have diameter approximately logn. We show that while this holds for m=1, for m2 the diameter is asymptotically log n/log logn.* Research supported in part by NSF grant no. DSM9971788     

Cycles through specified vertices

Recently, various authors have obtained results about the existence of long cycles in graphs with a given minimum degreed. We extend these results to the case where only some of the vertices are known to have degree at leastd, and we want to find a cycle through as many of these vertices as possible. IfG is a graph onn vertices andW is a set ofw vertices of degree at leastd, we prove that there is a cycle through at least vertices ofW. We also find the extremal graphs for this property.Research supported in part by NSF Grant DMS 8806097     

Edge coloring of hypergraphs and a conjecture of ErdÖs,Faber, Lovász

Call a bypergraphsimple if for any pairu, v of distinct vertices, there is at most one edge incident to bothu andv, and there are no edges incident to exactly one vertex. A conjecture of Erds, Faber and Lovász is equivalent to the statement that the edges of any simple hypergraph onn vertices can be colored with at mostn colors. We present a simple proof that the edges of a simple hypergraph onn vertices can be colored with at most [1.5n-2 colors].This research was partially supported by N.S.F. grant No. MCS-8311422.     

Automorphisms of random graphs with specified vertices

Conditions are found under which the expected number of automorphisms of a large random labelled graph with a given degree sequence is close to 1. These conditions involve the probability that such a graph has a given subgraph. One implication is that the probability that a random unlabelledk-regular simple graph onn vertices has only the trivial group of automorphisms is asymptotic to 1 asn → ∞ with 3≦k=O(n ^1/2−c). In combination with previously known results, this produces an asymptotic formula for the number of unlabelledk-regular simple graphs onn vertices, as well as various asymptotic results on the probable connectivity and girth of such graphs. Corresponding results for graphs with more arbitrary degree sequences are obtained. The main results apply equally well to graphs in which multiple edges and loops are permitted, and also to bicoloured graphs. Research of the second author supported by U. S. National Science Foundation Grant MCS-8101555, and by the Australian Department of Science and Technology under the Queen Elizabeth II Fellowships Scheme. Current address: Mathematics Department, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.     

A 2 + ɛ approximation algorithm for the k-MST problem

For any ɛ > 0 we give a (2 + ɛ)-approximation algorithm for the problem of finding a minimum tree spanning any k vertices in a graph (k-MST), improving a 3-approximation algorithm by Garg [10]. As in [10] the algorithm extends to a (2 + ɛ)-approximation algorithm for the minimum tour that visits any k vertices, provided the edge costs satisfy the triangle inequality. Research supported by NSF CAREER award NSF CCR-9502747, NSF grants CCR-0205594 and CCR-0098180, an Alfred Sloan Fellowship, and a Packard Fellowship. Research supported by an NSERC Discovery grant.     

A New Lower Bound For A Ramsey-Type Problem

Let 3 ≤ r < s be fixed integers and let G be a graph on n vertices not containing a complete graph on s vertices. The main aim of this paper is to provide a new lower bound on the size of the maximum subset of G without a copy of complete graph K_r. Our results substantially improve previous bounds of Krivelevich and Bollobás and Hind. * Research supported in part by NSF grants DMS-0106589, CCR-9987845 and by the State of New Jersey. Part of this research was done while visiting Microsoft Research.     

Vertex Covers by Edge Disjoint Cliques

Dedicated to the memory of Paul Erdős Let H be a simple graph having no isolated vertices. An (H,k)-vertex-cover of a simple graph G = (V,E) is a collection of subgraphs of G satisfying 1.  , for all i = 1, ..., r, 2.  , 3.  , for all , and 4.  each is in at most k of the . We consider the existence of such vertex covers when H is a complete graph, , in the context of extremal and random graphs. Received October 31, 1999 RID="*" ID="*" Supported in part by NSF grant DMS-9627408. RID="†" ID="†" Supported in part by NSF grant CCR-9530974. RID="‡" ID="‡" Supported in part by OTKA Grants T 030059 and T 29074, FKFP 0607/1999 and by the Bolyai Foundation. RID="§" ID="§" Supported in part by NSF grant DMS-9970622.     

Embedding nearly-spanning bounded degree trees

We derive a sufficient condition for a sparse graph G on n vertices to contain a copy of a tree T of maximum degree at most d on (1 − ε)n vertices, in terms of the expansion properties of G. As a result we show that for fixed d ≥ 2 and 0 < ε < 1, there exists a constant c = c(d, ε) such that a random graph G(n, c/n) contains almost surely a copy of every tree T on (1 − ε)n vertices with maximum degree at most d. We also prove that if an (n, D, λ)-graph G (i.e., a D-regular graph on n vertices all of whose eigenvalues, except the first one, are at most λ in their absolute values) has large enough spectral gap D/λ as a function of d and ε, then G has a copy of every tree T as above. Research supported in part by a USA-Israeli BSF grant, by NSF grant CCR-0324906, by a Wolfensohn fund and by the State of New Jersey. Research supported in part by USA-Israel BSF Grant 2002-133, and by grants 64/01 and 526/05 from the Israel Science Foundation. Research supported in part by NSF CAREER award DMS-0546523, NSF grant DMS-0355497, USA-Israeli BSF grant, and by an Alfred P. Sloan fellowship.     

The asymptotic number of acyclic digraphs. I

We obtain an asymptotic formula forA _n,q , the number of digraphs withn labeled vertices,q edges and no cycles. The derivation consists of two separate parts. In the first we analyze the generating function forA _n,q so as to obtain a central limit theorem for an associated probability distribution. In the second part we show combinatorially thatA _n,q is a smooth function ofq. By combining these results, we obtain the desired asymptotic formula. Research supported by NSF under grant MCS-8300414. Research supported by NSERC under grant A4067. Research supported by NSF under grant MCS-8302282. Research supported by the Australian Department of Science and Technology under the Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship Scheme, while this author was at the University of Newcastle, Australia.     

List Colouring When The Chromatic Number Is Close To the Order Of The Graph

Ohba has conjectured [7] that if G has 2 (G)+1 or fewer vertices then the list chromatic number and chromatic number of G are equal. In this short note we prove the weaker version of the conjecture obtained by replacing 2 (G)+1 by * This research was partially supported by DIMACS and by CNRS/NSF collaboration grant. Research supported in part by NSF grants DMS-0106589, CCR-9987845 and by the State of New Jersey.     

On Graphs With Small Ramsey Numbers,II

There exists a constant C such that for every d-degenerate graphs G ₁ and G ₂ on n vertices, Ramsey number R(G ₁,G ₂) is at most Cn, where is the minimum of the maximum degrees of G ₁ and G ₂.* The work of this author was supported by the grants 99-01-00581 and 00-01-00916 of the Russian Foundation for Fundamental Research and the Dutch-Russian Grant NWO-047-008-006. The work of this author was supported by the NSF grant DMS-9704114.     

An upper bound on the number of planarK-sets

Given a setS ofn points, a subsetX of sizek is called ak-set if there is a hyperplane that separatesX fromS–X. We prove thatO(nk/log*k) is an upper bound for the number ofk-sets in the plane, thus improving the previous bound of Erdös, Lovász, Simmons, and Strauss by a factor of log*k.The research of J. Pach was supported in part by NSF Grant CCR-8901484 and by Grant OTKA-1418 from the Hungarian Foundation for Scientific Research. The research of W. Steiger and E. Szemerédi was supported in part by NSF Grant CCR-8902522. All authors express gratitude to the NSF DIMACS Center at Rutgers.