Acyclic 4‐Choosability of Planar Graphs with No 4‐ and 5‐Cycles

Every planar graph is known to be acyclically 7‐choosable and is conjectured to be acyclically 5‐choosable (O. V. Borodin, D. G. Fon‐Der‐Flaass, A. V. Kostochka, E. Sopena, J Graph Theory 40 (2002), 83–90). This conjecture if proved would imply both Borodin's (Discrete Math 25 (1979), 211–236) acyclic 5‐color theorem and Thomassen's (J Combin Theory Ser B 62 (1994), 180–181) 5‐choosability theorem. However, as yet it has been verified only for several restricted classes of graphs. Some sufficient conditions are also obtained for a planar graph to be acyclically 4‐ and 3‐choosable. In particular, the acyclic 4‐choosability was proved for the following planar graphs: without 3‐, 4‐, and 5‐cycles (M. Montassier, P. Ochem, and A. Raspaud, J Graph Theory 51 (2006), 281–300), without 4‐, 5‐, and 6‐cycles, or without 4‐, 5‐, and 7‐cycles, or without 4‐, 5‐, and intersecting 3‐cycles (M. Montassier, A. Raspaud, W. Wang, Topics Discrete Math (2006), 473–491), and neither 4‐ and 5‐cycles nor 8‐cycles having a triangular chord (M. Chen and A. Raspaud, Discrete Math. 310(15–16) (2010), 2113–2118). The purpose of this paper is to strengthen these results by proving that each planar graph without 4‐ and 5‐cycles is acyclically 4‐choosable.     

A 3-color Theorem on Plane Graphs without 5-circuits

In this paper, we prove that every plane graph without 5-circuits and without triangles of distance less than 3 is 3-colorable. This improves the main result of Borodin and Raspaud [Borodin, O. V., Raspaud, A.： A sufficient condition for planar graphs to be 3-colorable. Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Ser. B, 88, 17-27 （2003）], and provides a new upper bound to their conjecture.     

Acyclic 5‐choosability of planar graphs without adjacent short cycles

The conjecture on acyclic 5‐choosability of planar graphs [Borodin et al., 2002] as yet has been verified only for several restricted classes of graphs. None of these classes allows 4‐cycles. We prove that a planar graph is acyclically 5‐choosable if it does not contain an i‐cycle adjacent to a j‐cycle where 3?j?5 if i = 3 and 4?j?6 if i = 4. This result absorbs most of the previous work in this direction. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 68:169‐176, 2011     

1‐Factorizations of pseudorandom graphs

A 1‐factorization of a graph G is a collection of edge‐disjoint perfect matchings whose union is E(G). In this paper, we prove that for any ?>0, an (n,d,λ)‐graph G admits a 1‐factorization provided that n is even, C₀ ≤ d ≤ n?1 (where C₀=C₀(?) is a constant depending only on ?), and λ ≤ d^1??. In particular, since (as is well known) a typical random d‐regular graph G_n,d is such a graph, we obtain the existence of a 1‐factorization in a typical G_n,d for all C₀ ≤ d ≤ n?1, thereby extending to all possible values of d results obtained by Janson, and independently by Molloy, Robalewska, Robinson, and Wormald for fixed d. Moreover, we also obtain a lower bound for the number of distinct 1‐factorizations of such graphs G, which is better by a factor of 2^nd/2 than the previously best known lower bounds, even in the simplest case where G is the complete graph.     

Maximal K3's and Hamiltonicity of 4‐connected claw‐free graphs

Let cl(G) denote Ryjá?ek's closure of a claw‐free graph G. In this article, we prove the following result. Let G be a 4‐connected claw‐free graph. Assume that G[N_G(T)] is cyclically 3‐connected if T is a maximal K₃ in G which is also maximal in cl(G). Then G is hamiltonian. This result is a common generalization of Kaiser et al.'s theorem [J Graph Theory 48(4) (2005), 267–276] and Pfender's theorem [J Graph Theory 49(4) (2005), 262–272]. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory     

A degree sum condition for longest cycles in 3‐connected graphs

For a graph G, we denote by d_G(x) and κ(G) the degree of a vertex x in G and the connectivity of G, respectively. In this article, we show that if G is a 3‐connected graph of order n such that d_G(x) + d_G(y) + d_G(z) ≥ d for every independent set {x, y, z}, then G contains a cycle of length at least min{d ? κ(G), n}. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 54: 277–283, 2007     

Graph diameter in long‐range percolation

We study the asymptotic growth of the diameter of a graph obtained by adding sparse “long” edges to a square box in ${\mathbb Z}^dWe study the asymptotic growth of the diameter of a graph obtained by adding sparse “long” edges to a square box in ${\mathbb Z}^d$. We focus on the cases when an edge between x and y is added with probability decaying with the Euclidean distance as |x ? y|^?s+o(1) when |x ? y| → ∞. For s ∈ (d, 2d) we show that the graph diameter for the graph reduced to a box of side L scales like (log L)^Δ+o(1) where Δ^?1 := log₂(2d/s). In particular, the diameter grows about as fast as the typical graph distance between two vertices at distance L. We also show that a ball of radius r in the intrinsic metric on the (infinite) graph will roughly coincide with a ball of radius exp{r^1/Δ+o(1)} in the Euclidean metric. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 39, 210‐227, 2011     

Judiciously 3‐partitioning 3‐uniform hypergraphs

Bollobás, Reed, and Thomason proved every 3‐uniform hypergraph ? with m edges has a vertex‐partition V()=V₁?V₂?V₃ such that each part meets at least edges, later improved to 0.6m by Halsegrave and improved asymptotically to 0.65m+o(m) by Ma and Yu. We improve this asymptotic bound to , which is best possible up to the error term, resolving a special case of a conjecture of Bollobás and Scott.     

Hamilton cycles in 3‐out

Let G_3‐out denote the random graph on vertex set [n] in which each vertex chooses three neighbors uniformly at random. Note that G_3‐out has minimum degree 3 and average degree 6. We prove that the probability that G_3‐out is Hamiltonian goes to 1 as n tends to infinity. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2009     

6‐Star‐Coloring of Subcubic Graphs

A star coloring of an undirected graph G is a proper vertex coloring of G (i.e., no two adjacent vertices are assigned the same color) such that no path on four vertices is 2‐colored. The star chromatic number of G is the smallest integer k for which G admits a star coloring with k colors. In this paper, we prove that every subcubic graph is 6‐star‐colorable. Moreover, the upper bound 6 is best possible, based on the example constructed by Fertin, Raspaud, and Reed (J Graph Theory 47(3) (2004), 140–153).     

Edge‐face coloring of plane graphs with maximum degree nine

An edge‐face coloring of a plane graph with edge set E and face set F is a coloring of the elements of E∪F so that adjacent or incident elements receive different colors. Borodin [Discrete Math 128(1–3):21–33, 1994] proved that every plane graph of maximum degree Δ?10 can be edge‐face colored with Δ + 1 colors. We extend Borodin's result to the case where Δ = 9. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 66:332‐346, 2011     

Packing tight Hamilton cycles in 3‐uniform hypergraphs

Let H be a 3‐uniform hypergraph with n vertices. A tight Hamilton cycle C ? H is a collection of n edges for which there is an ordering of the vertices v₁,…,v_n such that every triple of consecutive vertices {v_i,v_i+1,v_i+2} is an edge of C (indices are considered modulo n ). We develop new techniques which enable us to prove that under certain natural pseudo‐random conditions, almost all edges of H can be covered by edge‐disjoint tight Hamilton cycles, for n divisible by 4. Consequently, we derive the corollary that random 3‐uniform hypergraphs can be almost completely packed with tight Hamilton cycles whp, for n divisible by 4 and p not too small. Along the way, we develop a similar result for packing Hamilton cycles in pseudo‐random digraphs with even numbers of vertices. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2011     

Codiameters of 3‐connected 3‐domination critical graphs

A graph G is 3‐domination critical if its domination number γ is 3 and the addition of any edge decreases γ by 1. Let G be a 3‐connected 3‐domination critical graph of order n. In this paper, we show that there is a path of length at least n?2 between any two distinct vertices in G and the lower bound is sharp. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Graph Theory 39: 76–85, 2002     

Finding Δ(Σ) for a surface σ of characteristic χ(Σ) = −5

For each surface Σ, we define Δ(Σ) = max{Δ(G)|Gis a class two graph of maximum degree Δ(G) that can be embedded in Σ}. Hence, Vizing's Planar Graph Conjecture can be restated as Δ(Σ) = 5 if Σ is a plane. In this paper, we show that Δ(Σ) = 9 if Σ is a surface of characteristic χ(Σ) = ?5. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 68:148‐168, 2011     

The existence of a 2‐factor in K1, n‐free graphs with large connectivity and large edge‐connectivity

In this article, we study the existence of a 2‐factor in a K_{1, n}‐free graph. Sumner [J London Math Soc 13 (1976), 351–359] proved that for n?4, an (n?1)‐connected K_{1, n}‐free graph of even order has a 1‐factor. On the other hand, for every pair of integers m and n with m?n?4, there exist infinitely many (n?2)‐connected K_{1, n}‐free graphs of even order and minimum degree at least m which have no 1‐factor. This implies that the connectivity condition of Sumner's result is sharp, and we cannot guarantee the existence of a 1‐factor by imposing a large minimum degree. On the other hand, Ota and Tokuda [J Graph Theory 22 (1996), 59–64] proved that for n?3, every K_{1, n}‐free graph of minimum degree at least 2n?2 has a 2‐factor, regardless of its connectivity. They also gave examples showing that their minimum degree condition is sharp. But all of them have bridges. These suggest that the effects of connectivity, edge‐connectivity and minimum degree to the existence of a 2‐factor in a K_{1, n}‐free graph are more complicated than those to the existence of a 1‐factor. In this article, we clarify these effects by giving sharp minimum degree conditions for a K_{1, n}‐free graph with a given connectivity or edge‐connectivity to have a 2‐factor. Copyright © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 68:77‐89, 2011     

Every 3‐connected claw‐free Z8‐free graph is Hamiltonian

A biclique of a graph G is a maximal induced complete bipartite subgraph of G. Given a graph G, the biclique matrix of G is a {0,1,?1} matrix having one row for each biclique and one column for each vertex of G, and such that a pair of 1, ?1 entries in a same row corresponds exactly to adjacent vertices in the corresponding biclique. We describe a characterization of biclique matrices, in similar terms as those employed in Gilmore's characterization of clique matrices. On the other hand, the biclique graph of a graph is the intersection graph of the bicliques of G. Using the concept of biclique matrices, we describe a Krausz‐type characterization of biclique graphs. Finally, we show that every induced P₃ of a biclique graph must be included in a diamond or in a 3‐fan and we also characterize biclique graphs of bipartite graphs. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 63: 1–16, 2010     

Minimum embedding of P3‐designs into (K4—e)‐designs

A (K₄ ? e)‐design on v + w points embeds a P₃‐design on v points if there is a subset of v points on which the K₄ ? e blocks induce the blocks of a P₃‐design. It is shown that w ≥ ¾(v ? 1). When equality holds, the embedding design is easily constructed. In this paper, the next case, when w = ¾v, is settled with finitely many exceptions. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 11: 352–366, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/jcd.10044     

Nowhere‐zero 3‐flows in locally connected graphs

Let G be a graph. For each vertex v ∈V(G), N_v denotes the subgraph induces by the vertices adjacent to v in G. The graph G is locally k‐edge‐connected if for each vertex v ∈V(G), N_v is k‐edge‐connected. In this paper we study the existence of nowhere‐zero 3‐flows in locally k‐edge‐connected graphs. In particular, we show that every 2‐edge‐connected, locally 3‐edge‐connected graph admits a nowhere‐zero 3‐flow. This result is best possible in the sense that there exists an infinite family of 2‐edge‐connected, locally 2‐edge‐connected graphs each of which does not have a 3‐NZF. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 42: 211–219, 2003     

Maximal σ‐polynomials of connected 3‐chromatic graphs

In the set of graphs of order n and chromatic number k the following partial order relation is defined. One says that a graph G is less than a graph H if c_i(G) ≤ c_i(H) holds for every i, k ≤ i ≤ n and at least one inequality is strict, where c_i(G) denotes the number of i‐color partitions of G. In this paper the first ? n/2 ? levels of the diagram of the partially ordered set of connected 3‐chromatic graphs of order n are described. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 43: 210–222, 2003     

A sufficient condition on 3-colorable plane graphs without 5- and 6-circuits

In 2003, Borodin and Raspaud proved that if G is a plane graph without 5-circuits and without triangles of distance less than four, then G is 3-colorable. In this paper, we prove that if G is a plane graph without 5- and 6-circuits and without triangles of distance less than 2, then G is 3-colorable.