Spectral characterization of some weighted rooted graphs with cliques

The level of a vertex in a rooted graph is one more than its distance from the root vertex. A generalized Bethe tree is a rooted tree in which vertices at the same level have the same degree. We characterize completely the eigenvalues of the Laplacian, signless Laplacian and adjacency matrices of a weighted rooted graph G obtained from a weighted generalized Bethe tree of k levels and weighted cliques in which

(1)

the edges connecting vertices at consecutive levels have the same weight,

(2)

each set of children, in one or more levels, defines a weighted clique, and

(3)

cliques at the same level are isomorphic.

These eigenvalues are the eigenvalues of symmetric tridiagonal matrices of order Moreover, we give results on the multiplicity of the eigenvalues, on the spectral radii and on the algebraic conectivity. Finally, we apply the results to the unweighted case and some particular graphs are studied.     

Maximum weight edge-constrained matchings

Practical questions arising from (for instance) biological applications can often be expressed as classical optimization problems with specific, new features. We are interested here in the version of the maximum weight matching problem (on a graph G) obtained by (1) defining a set F of pairs of incompatible edges of G and (2) asking that the matching contains at most one edge in each given pair. Such a matching is called an odd matching. The graph T(F)=(V_F,F), where V_F is the set of edges of G occurring in at least one pair of F, is called the trace-graph of G and F.We motivate the introduction of the maximum weight odd-matching (abbreviated as Odd-MWM) problem and study its complexity with respect to two parameters: the type of graph G and the graph class T to which T(F) belongs.Our contribution includes:

•

A proof that Odd-MWM is NP-complete for 3-degree bipartite graphs when T(F) is a matching (i.e. when T is the class of 1-regular graphs), even if the weight function is constant.

•

A proof that Odd-MWM is NP-complete (for 3-degree bipartite graphs as well as for any larger class) if and only if T is a class of graphs with unbounded induced matching. Otherwise, Odd-MWM is polynomial.

•

A (Δ(T(F))+1)-approximate algorithm for Odd-MWM on general graphs. This algorithm becomes a χ(T(F))-approximate algorithm when the graph class T admits a polynomial algorithm for minimum vertex coloring.

     

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.     

{k,r – k}-Factors of r-Regular Graphs

For a set \({\mathcal{S}}\) of positive integers, a spanning subgraph F of a graph G is called an \({\mathcal{S}}\) -factor of G if \({\deg_F(x) \in \mathcal{S}}\) for all vertices x of G, where deg _F (x) denotes the degree of x in F. We prove the following theorem on {a, b}-factors of regular graphs. Let r ≥ 5 be an odd integer and k be either an even integer such that 2 ≤ k < r/2 or an odd integer such that r/3 ≤ k < r/2. Then every r-regular graph G has a {k, r–k}-factor. Moreover, for every edge e of G, G has a {k, r–k}-factor containing e and another {k, r–k}-factor avoiding e.     

Graph operations that are good for greedoids

S is a local maximum stable set of a graph G, and we write S∈Ψ(G), if the set S is a maximum stable set of the subgraph induced by S∪N(S), where N(S) is the neighborhood of S. In Levit and Mandrescu (2002) [5] we have proved that Ψ(G) is a greedoid for every forest G. The cases of bipartite graphs and triangle-free graphs were analyzed in Levit and Mandrescu (2003) [6] and Levit and Mandrescu (2007) [7] respectively.In this paper we give necessary and sufficient conditions for Ψ(G) to form a greedoid, where G is:

(a)

the disjoint union of a family of graphs;

(b)

the Zykov sum of a family of graphs;

(c)

the corona X°{H₁,H₂,…,H_n} obtained by joining each vertex x of a graph X to all the vertices of a graph H_x.

     

On 2-factors with k components

In this paper we study the minimum degree condition for a Hamiltonian graph to have a 2-factor with k components. By proving a conjecture of Faudree et al. [A note on 2-factors with two components, Discrete Math. 300 (2005) 218-224] we show the following. There exists a real number ε>0 such that for every integer k?2 there exists an integer n₀=n₀(k) such that every Hamiltonian graph G of order n?n₀ with has a 2-factor with k components.     

Spectral results on graphs with regularity constraints

Graphs with (k, τ)-regular sets and equitable partitions are examples of graphs with regularity constraints. A (k, τ)-regular set of a graph G is a subset of vertices S ⊆ V(G) inducing a k-regular subgraph and such that each vertex not in S has τ neighbors in S. The existence of such structures in a graph provides some information about the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of its adjacency matrix. For example, if a graph G has a (k₁, τ₁)-regular set S₁ and a (k₂, τ₂)-regular set S₂ such that k₁ − τ₁ = k₂ − τ₂ = λ, then λ is an eigenvalue of G with a certain eigenvector. Additionally, considering primitive strongly regular graphs, a necessary and sufficient condition for a particular subset of vertices to be (k, τ)-regular is introduced. Another example comes from the existence of an equitable partition in a graph. If a graph G, has an equitable partition π then its line graph, L(G), also has an equitable partition, , induced by π, and the adjacency matrix of the quotient graph is obtained from the adjacency matrix of G/π.     

Tournament immersion and cutwidth

A (loopless) digraph H is strongly immersed in a digraph G if the vertices of H are mapped to distinct vertices of G, and the edges of H are mapped to directed paths joining the corresponding pairs of vertices of G, in such a way that the paths used are pairwise edge-disjoint, and do not pass through vertices of G that are images of vertices of H. A digraph has cutwidth at most k if its vertices can be ordered {v₁,…,vn} in such a way that for each j, there are at most k edges uv such that u∈{v₁,…,vj−1} and v∈{vj,…,vn}.We prove that for every set S of tournaments, the following are equivalent:

•

there is a digraph H such that H cannot be strongly immersed in any member of S,

•

there exists k such that every member of S has cutwidth at most k,

•

there exists k such that every vertex of every member of S belongs to at most k edge-disjoint directed cycles.

This is a key lemma towards two results that will be presented in later papers: first, that strong immersion is a well-quasi-order for tournaments, and second, that there is a polynomial time algorithm for the k edge-disjoint directed paths problem (for fixed k) in a tournament.     

Left and right uniform structures on functionally balanced groups

Let G be a Hausdorff topological group. It is shown that there is a class C of subspaces of G, containing all (but not only) precompact subsets of G, for which the following result holds:Suppose that for every real-valued discontinuous function on G there is a set A∈C such that the restriction mapping f|A has no continuous extension to G; then the following are equivalent:

(i)

the left and right uniform structures of G are equivalent,

(ii)

every left uniformly continuous bounded real-valued function on G is right uniformly continuous,

(iii)

for every countable set A⊂G and every neighborhood V of the unit e of G, there is a neighborhood U of e in G such that AU⊂VA.

As a consequence, it is proved that items (i), (ii) and (iii) are equivalent for every inframetrizable group. These results generalize earlier ones established by Itzkowitz, Rothman, Strassberg and Wu, by Milnes and by Pestov for locally compact groups, by Protasov for almost metrizable groups, and by Troallic for groups that are quasi-k-spaces.     

Computing tight upper bounds on the algebraic connectivity of certain graphs

A generalized Bethe tree is a rooted unweighted tree in which vertices at the same level have the same degree. Let B be a generalized Bethe tree. The algebraic connectivity of:

the generalized Bethe tree B,

a tree obtained from the union of B and a tree T isomorphic to a subtree of B such that the root vertex of T is the root vertex of B,

a tree obtained from the union of r generalized Bethe trees joined at their respective root vertices,

a graph obtained from the cycle C_r by attaching B, by its root, to each vertex of the cycle, and

a tree obtained from the path P_r by attaching B, by its root, to each vertex of the path,

is the smallest eigenvalue of a special type of symmetric tridiagonal matrices. In this paper, we first derive a procedure to compute a tight upper bound on the smallest eigenvalue of this special type of matrices. Finally, we apply the procedure to obtain a tight upper bound on the algebraic connectivity of the above mentioned graphs.

     

Topological graph dimension

In the invited chapter Discrete Spatial Models of the book Handbook of Spatial Logics, we have introduced the concept of dimension for graphs, which is inspired by Evako’s idea of dimension of graphs [A.V. Evako, R. Kopperman, Y.V. Mukhin, Dimensional properties of graphs and digital spaces, J. Math. Imaging Vision 6 (1996) 109-119]. Our definition is analogous to that of (small inductive) dimension in topology. Besides the expected properties of isomorphism-invariance and monotonicity with respect to subgraph inclusion, it has the following distinctive features:

•

Local aspect. That is, dimension at a vertex is basic, and the dimension of a graph is obtained as the sup over its vertices.

•

Dimension of a strong product G×H is dim(G)+dim(H) (for non-empty graphs G,H).

In this paper we present a short account of the basic theory, with several new applications and results.     

Colouring graphs with bounded generalized colouring number

Given a graph G and a positive integer p, χ_p(G) is the minimum number of colours needed to colour the vertices of G so that for any i≤p, any subgraph H of G of tree-depth i gets at least i colours. This paper proves an upper bound for χ_p(G) in terms of the k-colouring number of G for k=2^p−2. Conversely, for each integer k, we also prove an upper bound for in terms of χ_k+2(G). As a consequence, for a class K of graphs, the following two statements are equivalent:

(a)

For every positive integer p, χ_p(G) is bounded by a constant for all G∈K.

(b)

For every positive integer k, is bounded by a constant for all G∈K.

It was proved by Nešet?il and Ossona de Mendez that (a) is equivalent to the following:

(c)

For every positive integer q, ∇_q(G) (the greatest reduced average density of G with rank q) is bounded by a constant for all G∈K.

Therefore (b) and (c) are also equivalent. We shall give a direct proof of this equivalence, by introducing ∇_q−(1/2)(G) and by showing that there is a function F_k such that . This gives an alternate proof of the equivalence of (a) and (c).     

Optimum quantization and its applications

Minimum sums of moments or, equivalently, distortion of optimum quantizers play an important role in several branches of mathematics. Fejes Tóth's inequality for sums of moments in the plane and Zador's asymptotic formula for minimum distortion in Euclidean d-space are the first precise pertinent results in dimension d?2. In this article these results are generalized in the form of asymptotic formulae for minimum sums of moments, resp. distortion of optimum quantizers on Riemannian d-manifolds and normed d-spaces. In addition, we provide geometric and analytic information on the structure of optimum configurations. Our results are then used to obtain information on

(i)

the minimum distortion of high-resolution vector quantization and optimum quantizers,

(ii)

the error of best approximation of probability measures by discrete measures and support sets of best approximating discrete measures,

(iii)

the minimum error of numerical integration formulae for classes of Hölder continuous functions and optimum sets of nodes,

(iv)

best volume approximation of convex bodies by circumscribed convex polytopes and the form of best approximating polytopes, and

(v)

the minimum isoperimetric quotient of convex polytopes in Minkowski spaces and the form of the minimizing polytopes.