Orthogonal double covers of Cayley graphs

Let X and G be graphs, such that G is isomorphic to a subgraph of X.An orthogonal double cover (ODC) of X by G is a collection of subgraphs of X, all isomorphic with G, such that (i) every edge of X occurs in exactly two members of and (ii) and share an edge if and only if x and y are adjacent in X. The main question is: given the pair (X,G), is there an ODC of X by G? An obvious necessary condition is that X is regular.A technique to construct ODCs for Cayley graphs is introduced. It is shown that for all (X,G) where X is a 3-regular Cayley graph on an abelian group there is an ODC, a few well known exceptions apart.     

Orthogonal double covers by super‐extendable cycles

An Orthogonal Double Cover (ODC) of the complete graph K_n by an almost‐hamiltonian cycle is a decomposition of 2K_n into cycles of length n?1 such that the intersection of any two of them is exactly one edge. We introduce a new class of such decompositions. If n is a prime, the special structure of such a decomposition allows to expand it to an ODC of K_n+1 by an almost‐hamiltonian cycle. This yields the existence of an ODC of K_p+1 by an almost‐hamiltonian cycle for primes p of order 3 mod 4 and its eventual existence for arbitrary primes p. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 10: 283–293, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/jcd.10011     

Orthogonal graphs of odd characteristic and their automorphisms

The (isotropic) orthogonal graph O(2ν+δ,q) over of odd characteristic, where ν1 and δ=0,1 or 2 is introduced. When ν=1, O(21+δ,q) is a complete graph. When ν2, O(2ν+δ,q) is strongly regular and its parameters are computed, as well as its chromatic number. The automorphism groups of orthogonal graphs are also determined.     

Vizing’s conjecture for chordal graphs

Vizing conjectured that γ(G□H)≥γ(G)γ(H) for every pair G,H of graphs, where “□” is the Cartesian product, and γ(G) is the domination number of the graph G. Denote by γⁱ(G) the maximum, over all independent sets I in G, of the minimal number of vertices needed to dominate I. We prove that γ(G□H)≥γⁱ(G)γ(H). Since for chordal graphs γⁱ=γ, this proves Vizing’s conjecture when G is chordal.     

Note on cycle double covers of graphs

Kriesell [M. Kriesell, Contractions, cycle double covers and cyclic colorings in locally connected graphs, J. Combin. Theory Ser. B 96 (2006) 881-900] proved the cycle double cover conjecture for locally connected graphs. In this note, we give much shorter proofs for two stronger results.     

Orthogonal Double Covers of Complete Graphs by Caterpillars of Diameter 5

An orthogonal double cover (ODC) of the complete graph K_n by a graph G is a collection = {G_i|i = 1,2, . . . ,n} of spanning subgraphs of K_n, all isomorphic to G, with the property that every edge of K_n belongs to exactly two members of and any two distinct members of share exactly one edge. A caterpillar of diameter five is a tree arising from a path with six vertices by attaching pendant vertices to some or each of its vertices of degree two. We show that for any caterpillar of diameter five there exists an ODC of the complete graph K_n.     

Symmetrical path-cycle covers of a graph and polygonal graphs

A near-polygonal graph is a graph Γ which has a set C of m-cycles for some positive integer m such that each 2-path of Γ is contained in exactly one cycle in C. If m is the girth of Γ then the graph is called polygonal. We introduce a method for constructing near-polygonal graphs with 2-arc transitive automorphism groups. As special cases, we obtain several new infinite families of polygonal graphs.     

On the computational complexity of partial covers of Theta graphs

By use of elementary geometric arguments we prove the existence of a special integral solution of a certain system of linear equations. The existence of such a solution then yields the NP-hardness of the decision problem on the existence of locally injective homomorphisms to Theta graphs with three distinct odd path lengths.     

Line graphs of complete multipartite graphs have small cycle double covers

It has been shown by MacGillivray and Seyffarth (Austral. J. Combin. 24 (2001) 91) that bridgeless line graphs of complete graphs, complete bipartite graphs, and planar graphs have small cycle double covers. In this paper, we extend the result for complete bipartite graphs, and show that the line graph of any complete multipartite graph (other than K_1,2) has a small cycle double cover.     

Circuit double covers in special types of cubic graphs

Suppose that a 2-connected cubic graph G of order n has a circuit C of length at least n−4 such that G−V(C) is connected. We show that G has a circuit double cover containing a prescribed set of circuits which satisfy certain conditions. It follows that hypohamiltonian cubic graphs (i.e., non-hamiltonian cubic graphs G such that G−v is hamiltonian for every v∈V(G)) have strong circuit double covers.     

Exact and asymptotic results on coarse Ricci curvature of graphs

Ricci curvature was proposed by Ollivier in a general framework of metric measure spaces, and it has been studied extensively in the context of graphs in recent years. In this paper we obtain the exact formulas for Ollivier’s Ricci-curvature for bipartite graphs and for the graphs with girth at least 5. These are the first formulas for Ricci-curvature that hold for a wide class of graphs, and extend earlier results where the Ricci-curvature for graphs with girth 6 was obtained. We also prove a general lower bound on the Ricci-curvature in terms of the size of the maximum matching in an appropriate subgraph. As a consequence, we characterize the Ricci-flat graphs of girth 5. Moreover, using our general lower bound and the Birkhoff–von Neumann theorem, we give the first necessary and sufficient condition for the structure of Ricci-flat regular graphs of girth 4. Finally, we obtain the asymptotic Ricci-curvature of random bipartite graphs G(n,n,p)$G(n,n,p)$ and random graphs G(n,p)$G(n,p)$, in various regimes of p$p$.     

On Orthogonal Double Covers of Graphs

An orthogonal double cover (ODC) is a collection of n spanning subgraphs(pages) of the complete graph K _n such that they cover every edge of the completegraph twice and the intersection of any two of them contains exactly one edge. If all the pages are isomorphic tosome graph G, we speak of an ODC by G. ODCs have been studied for almost 25 years, and existenceresults have been derived for many graph classes. We present an overview of the current state of research alongwith some new results and generalizations. As will be obvious, progress made in the last 10 years is in many waysrelated to the work of Ron Mullin. So it is natural and with pleasure that we dedicate this article to Ron, on theoccasion of his 65th birthday.     

A Class of 2-Colorable Orthogonal Double Covers of Complete Graphs by Hamiltonian Paths

K _n by a graph G is a collection ? of n spanning subgraphs of K _n , all isomorphic to G, such that any two members of ? share exactly one edge and every edge of K _n is contained in exactly two members of ?. In the 1980's Hering posed the problem to decide the existence of an ODC for the case that G is an almost-hamiltonian cycle, i.e. a cycle of length n−1. It is known that the existence of an ODC of K _n by a hamiltonian path implies the existence of ODCs of K _4n and K _16n , respectively, by almost-hamiltonian cycles. Horton and Nonay introduced 2-colorable ODCs and showed: If for n≥3 and a prime power q≥5 there are an ODC of K _n by a hamiltonian path and a 2-colorable ODC of K _q by a hamiltonian path, then there is an ODC of K _qn by a hamiltonian path. We construct 2-colorable ODCs of K _n and K _2n , respectively, by hamiltonian paths for all odd square numbers n≥9. Received: January 27, 2000     

A note on the strength and minimum color sum of bipartite graphs

The strength of a graph G is the smallest integer s such that there exists a minimum sum coloring of G using integers {1,…,s}, only. For bipartite graphs of maximum degree Δ we show the following simple bound: s≤⌈Δ/2⌉+1. As a consequence, there exists a quadratic time algorithm for determining the strength and minimum color sum of bipartite graphs of maximum degree Δ≤4.     

Multivariate matching polynomials of cyclically labelled graphs

We consider the matching polynomials of graphs whose edges have been cyclically labelled with the ordered set of t labels {x₁,…,x_t}.We first work with the cyclically labelled path, with first edge label x_i, followed by N full cycles of labels {x₁,…,x_t}, and last edge label x_j. Let Φ_i,Nt+j denote the matching polynomial of this path. It satisfies the (τ,Δ)-recurrence: , where τ is the sum of all non-consecutive cyclic monomials in the variables {x₁,…,x_t} and . A combinatorial/algebraic proof and a matrix proof of this fact are given. Let G_N denote the first fundamental solution to the (τ,Δ)-recurrence. We express G_N (i) as a cyclic binomial using the symmetric representation of a matrix, (ii) in terms of Chebyshev polynomials of the second kind in the variables τ and Δ, and (iii) as a quotient of two matching polynomials. We extend our results from paths to cycles and rooted trees.     

Cyclic orthogonal double covers of 4-regular circulant graphs

An orthogonal double cover (ODC) of a graph H is a collection G={G_v:v∈V(H)} of |V(H)| subgraphs of H such that every edge of H is contained in exactly two members of G and for any two members G_u and G_v in G, |E(G_u)∩E(G_v)| is 1 if u and v are adjacent in H and it is 0 if u and v are nonadjacent in H. An ODC G of H is cyclic (CODC) if the cyclic group of order |V(H)| is a subgroup of the automorphism group of G. In this paper, we are concerned with CODCs of 4-regular circulant graphs.     

Sphericity, cubicity, and edge clique covers of graphs

The sphericity sph(G) of a graph G is the minimum dimension d for which G is the intersection graph of a family of congruent spheres in R^d. The edge clique cover number θ(G) is the minimum cardinality of a set of cliques (complete subgraphs) that covers all edges of G. We prove that if G has at least one edge, then sph(G)?θ(G). Our upper bound remains valid for intersection graphs defined by balls in the L_p-norm for 1?p?∞.