Det‐extremal cubic bipartite graphs

Let G be a connected k–regular bipartite graph with bipartition V(G) = X ∪ Y and adjacency matrix A. We say G is det‐extremal if per (A) = |det(A)|. Det–extremal k–regular bipartite graphs exist only for k = 2 or 3. McCuaig has characterized the det‐extremal 3‐connected cubic bipartite graphs. We extend McCuaig's result by determining the structure of det‐extremal cubic bipartite graphs of connectivity two. We use our results to determine which numbers can occur as orders of det‐extremal connected cubic bipartite graphs, thus solving a problem due to H. Gropp. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 44: 50–64, 2003     

Maximal Energy Bipartite Graphs

 Given a graph G, its energy E(G) is defined to be the sum of the absolute values of the eigenvalues of G. This quantity is used in chemistry to approximate the total π-electron energy of molecules and in particular, in case G is bipartite, alternant hydrocarbons. Here we show that if G is a bipartite graph with n vertices, then

One-regular Normal Cayley Graphs on Dihedral Groups of Valency 4 or 6 with Cyclic Vertex Stabilizer

A graph G is one-regular if its automorphism group Aut（G） acts transitively and semiregularly on the arc set. A Cayley graph Cay（Г, S） is normal if Г is a normal subgroup of the full automorphism group of Cay（Г, S）. Xu, M. Y., Xu, J. （Southeast Asian Bulletin of Math., 25, 355-363 （2001）） classified one-regular Cayley graphs of valency at most 4 on finite abelian groups. Marusic, D., Pisanski, T. （Croat. Chemica Acta, 73, 969-981 （2000）） classified cubic one-regular Cayley graphs on a dihedral group, and all of such graphs turn out to be normal. In this paper, we classify the 4-valent one-regular normal Cayley graphs G on a dihedral group whose vertex stabilizers in Aut（G） are cyclic. A classification of the same kind of graphs of valency 6 is also discussed.     

Infinitely many pairs of cospectral integral regular graphs

A graph G is called integral if all the eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix A(G) of G are integers. In this paper, the graphs G ₄(a, b) and G ₅(a, b) with 2a+6b vertices are defined. We give their characteristic polynomials from matrix theory and prove that the (n+2)-regular graphs G ₄(n, n+2) and G ₅(n, n+2) are a pair of non-isomorphic connected cospectral integral regular graphs for any positive integer n.     

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.     

Recognition of some simple groups by their noncommuting graphs

Let G be a nonabelian group and associate a noncommuting graph ∇(G) with G as follows: The vertex set of ∇(G) is G\Z(G) with two vertices x and y joined by an edge whenever the commutator of x and y is not the identity. Abdollahi et al. (J Algebra 298(2):468–492, 2006) put forward a conjecture called AAM’s Conjecture in as follows: If M is a finite nonabelian simple group and G is a group such that ∇(G) ≅ ∇(M), then G ≅ M. Even though this conjecture is well known to hold for all simple groups with nonconnected prime graphs and the alternating group A ₁₀ [see Darafsheh (Groups with the same non-commuting graph. Discrete Appl Math (2008) doi:), Wang and Shi (Commun Algebra 36(2):523–528, 2008)], it is still unknown for all simple groups with connected prime graphs except A ₁₀. In the present paper, we prove that this conjecture is also true for the projective special linear simple group L ₄(9). The new method used in this paper also works well in the cases L ₄(4), L ₄(7), U ₄(7), etc.     

Koszulness,Krull dimension,and other properties of graph-related algebras

The algebra of basic covers of a graph G, denoted by [`(A)](G)\bar{A}(G), was introduced by Herzog as a suitable quotient of the vertex cover algebra. In this paper we compute the Krull dimension of [`(A)](G)\bar{A}(G) in terms of the combinatorics of G. As a consequence, we get new upper bounds on the arithmetical rank of monomial ideals of pure codimension 2. Furthermore, we show that if the graph is bipartite, then [`(A)](G)\bar{A}(G) is a homogeneous algebra with straightening laws, and thus it is Koszul. Finally, we characterize the Cohen–Macaulay property and the Castelnuovo–Mumford regularity of the edge ideal of a certain class of graphs.     

Homomorphisms of Products of Graphs into Graphs Without Four Cycles

Given two graphs A and G, we write if there is a homomorphism of A to G and if there is no such homomorphism. The graph G is -free if, whenever both a and c are adjacent to b and d, then a = c or b = d. We will prove that if A and B are connected graphs, each containing a triangle and if G is a -free graph with and , then (here " denotes the categorical product). Received August 31, 1998/Revised April 19, 2000 RID="†" ID="†" Supported by NSERC of Canada Grant #691325.     

Graphs whose critical groups have larger rank

The critical group C(G) of a graph G is a refinement of the number of spanning trees of the graph and is closely connected with the Laplacian matrix. Let r(G) be the minimum number of generators (i.e., the rank) of the group C(G) and β(G) be the number of independent cycles of G. In this paper, some forbidden induced subgraphs are given for r(G) = n − 3 and all graphs with r(G) = β(G) = n − 3 are characterized.     

Group Chromatic Number of Graphs without K5-Minors

 Let G be a graph with a fixed orientation and let A be a group. Let F(G,A) denote the set of all functions f: E(G) ↦A. The graph G is A -colorable if for any function f∈F(G,A), there is a function c: V(G) ↦A such that for every directed e=u v∈E(G), c(u)−c(v)≠f(e). The group chromatic numberχ₁(G) of a graph G is the minimum m such that G is A-colorable for any group A of order at least m under a given orientation D. In [J. Combin. Theory Ser. B, 56 (1992), 165–182], Jaeger et al. proved that if G is a simple planar graph, then χ₁(G)≤6. We prove in this paper that if G is a simple graph without a K ₅-minor, then χ₁(G)≤5. Received: August 18, 1999 Final version received: December 12, 2000     

On the total domination subdivision numbers in graphs

A set S of vertices of a graph G = (V, E) without isolated vertex is a total dominating set if every vertex of V(G) is adjacent to some vertex in S. The total domination number γ _t (G) is the minimum cardinality of a total dominating set of G. The total domination subdivision number sd_γt (G) is the minimum number of edges that must be subdivided (each edge in G can be subdivided at most once) in order to increase the total domination number. Karami, Khoeilar, Sheikholeslami and Khodkar, (Graphs and Combinatorics, 2009, 25, 727–733) proved that for any connected graph G of order n ≥ 3, sd_{γ t} (G) ≤ 2γ _t (G) − 1 and posed the following problem: Characterize the graphs that achieve the aforementioned upper bound. In this paper we first prove that sd_{γ t} (G) ≤ 2α′(G) for every connected graph G of order n ≥ 3 and δ(G) ≥ 2 where α′(G) is the maximum number of edges in a matching in G and then we characterize all connected graphs G with sd_{γ t} (G)=2γ _t (G)−1.     

The diameter of paired-domination vertex critical graphs

In this paper we continue the study of paired-domination in graphs introduced by Haynes and Slater (Networks 32 (1998), 199–206). A paired-dominating set of a graph G with no isolated vertex is a dominating set of vertices whose induced subgraph has a perfect matching. The paired-domination number of G, denoted by γ _pr(G), is the minimum cardinality of a paired-dominating set of G. The graph G is paired-domination vertex critical if for every vertex v of G that is not adjacent to a vertex of degree one, γ _pr(G − v) < γ _pr(G). We characterize the connected graphs with minimum degree one that are paired-domination vertex critical and we obtain sharp bounds on their maximum diameter. We provide an example which shows that the maximum diameter of a paired-domination vertex critical graph is at least 3/2 (γ _pr(G) − 2). For γ _pr(G) ⩽ 8, we show that this lower bound is precisely the maximum diameter of a paired-domination vertex critical graph. The first author was supported in part by the South African National Research Foundation and the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the second author was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.     

Super Restricted Edge Connectivity of Regular Graphs

An edge cut of a connected graph is called restricted if it separates this graph into components each having order at least 2; a graph G is super restricted edge connected if G−S contains an isolated edge for every minimum restricted edge cut S of G. It is proved in this paper that k-regular connected graph G is super restricted edge connected if k > |V(G)|/2+1. The lower bound on k is exemplified to be sharp to some extent. With this observation, we determined the number of edge cuts of size at most 2k−2 of these graphs. Supported by NNSF of China (10271105); Ministry of Science and Technology of Fujian (2003J036); Education Ministry of Fujian (JA03147)     

On graphs with the largest Laplacian index

Let G be a connected simple graph on n vertices. The Laplacian index of G, namely, the greatest Laplacian eigenvalue of G, is well known to be bounded above by n. In this paper, we give structural characterizations for graphs G with the largest Laplacian index n. Regular graphs, Hamiltonian graphs and planar graphs with the largest Laplacian index are investigated. We present a necessary and sufficient condition on n and k for the existence of a k-regular graph G of order n with the largest Laplacian index n. We prove that for a graph G of order n ⩾ 3 with the largest Laplacian index n, G is Hamiltonian if G is regular or its maximum vertex degree is Δ(G) = n/2. Moreover, we obtain some useful inequalities concerning the Laplacian index and the algebraic connectivity which produce miscellaneous related results. The first author is supported by NNSF of China (No. 10771080) and SRFDP of China (No. 20070574006). The work was done when Z. Chen was on sabbatical in China.     

Factor-Critical Graphs with Given Number of Maximum Matchings

A connected graph G is said to be factor-critical if G − ν has a perfect matching for every vertex ν of G. In this paper, the factor-critical graphs G with |V(G)| maximum matchings and with |V(G)| + 1 ones are characterized, respectively. From this, some special bicritical graphs are characterized. This work is supported by the Ph.D. Programs Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (No.20070574006) and the NNSF(10201019) of China.     

On a graph property generalizing planarity and flatness

We introduce a topological graph parameter σ(G), defined for any graph G. This parameter characterizes subgraphs of paths, outerplanar graphs, planar graphs, and graphs that have a flat embedding as those graphs G with σ(G)≤1,2,3, and 4, respectively. Among several other theorems, we show that if H is a minor of G, then σ(H)≤σ(G), that σ(K _n )=n−1, and that if H is the suspension of G, then σ(H)=σ(G)+1. Furthermore, we show that μ(G)≤σ(G) + 2 for each graph G. Here μ(G) is the graph parameter introduced by Colin de Verdière in [2].     

Super Connectivity and Super Edge Connectivity of the Mycielskian of a Graph

Mycielski introduced a new graph transformation μ(G) for graph G, which is called the Mycielskian of G. A graph G is super connected or simply super-κ (resp. super edge connected or super-λ), if every minimum vertex cut (resp. minimum edge cut) isolates a vertex of G. In this paper, we show that for a connected graph G with |V(G)| ≥ 2, μ(G) is super-κ if and only if δ(G) < 2κ(G), and μ(G) is super-λ if and only if G\ncong K₂{G\ncong K_2}.     

Unicyclic graphs with bicyclic inverses

A graph is nonsingular if its adjacency matrix A(G) is nonsingular. The inverse of a nonsingular graph G is a graph whose adjacency matrix is similar to A(G)^?1 via a particular type of similarity. Let H denote the class of connected bipartite graphs with unique perfect matchings. Tifenbach and Kirkland (2009) characterized the unicyclic graphs in H which possess unicyclic inverses. We present a characterization of unicyclic graphs in H which possess bicyclic inverses.     

Upper Bounds for the Laplacian Graph Eigenvalues

We first apply non-negative matrix theory to the matrix K = D A, where D and A are the degree-diagonal and adjacency matrices of a graph G, respectively, to establish a relation on the largest Laplacian eigenvalue λ1 (G) of G and the spectral radius p(K) of K. And then by using this relation we present two upper bounds for λ1(G) and determine the extremal graphs which achieve the upper bounds.