The neighborhood complex of a random graph

For a graph G, the neighborhood complex N[G] is the simplicial complex having all subsets of vertices with a common neighbor as its faces. It is a well-known result of Lovász that if ‖N[G]‖ is k-connected, then the chromatic number of G is at least k+3.We prove that the connectivity of the neighborhood complex of a random graph is tightly concentrated, almost always between 1/2 and 2/3 of the expected clique number. We also show that the number of dimensions of nontrivial homology is almost always small, O(logd), compared to the expected dimension d of the complex itself.     

On realizations of point determining graphs, and obstructions to full homomorphisms

A graph is point determining if distinct vertices have distinct neighbourhoods. A realization of a point determining graph H is a point determining graph G such that each vertex-removed subgraph G-x which is point determining, is isomorphic to H. We study the fine structure of point determining graphs, and conclude that every point determining graph has at most two realizations.A full homomorphism of a graph G to a graph H is a vertex mapping f such that for distinct vertices u and v of G, we have uv an edge of G if and only if f(u)f(v) is an edge of H. For a fixed graph H, a full H-colouring of G is a full homomorphism of G to H. A minimal H-obstruction is a graph G which does not admit a full H-colouring, such that each proper induced subgraph of G admits a full H-colouring. We analyse minimal H-obstructions using our results on point determining graphs. We connect the two problems by proving that if H has k vertices, then a graph with k+1 vertices is a minimal H-obstruction if and only if it is a realization of H. We conclude that every minimal H-obstruction has at most k+1 vertices, and there are at most two minimal H-obstructions with k+1 vertices.We also consider full homomorphisms to graphs H in which loops are allowed. If H has ? loops and k vertices without loops, then every minimal H-obstruction has at most (k+1)(?+1) vertices, and, when both k and ? are positive, there is at most one minimal H-obstruction with (k+1)(?+1) vertices.In particular, this yields a finite forbidden subgraph characterization of full H-colourability, for any graph H with loops allowed.     

A bound for the number of vertices of a polytope with applications

We prove that the number of vertices of a polytope of a particular kind is exponentially large in the dimension of the polytope. As a corollary, we prove that an n-dimensional centrally symmetric polytope with O(n) facets has {ie1-1} vertices and that the number of r-factors in a k-regular graph is exponentially large in the number of vertices of the graph provided k≥2r+1 and every cut in the graph with at least two vertices on each side has more than k/r edges.     

Centrally symmetric polytopes with many faces

We present explicit constructions of centrally symmetric polytopes with many faces: (1) we construct a d-dimensional centrally symmetric polytope P with about 3 ^d/4 ≈ (1.316) ^d vertices such that every pair of non-antipodal vertices of P spans an edge of P, (2) for an integer k ≥ 2, we construct a d-dimensional centrally symmetric polytope P of an arbitrarily high dimension d and with an arbitrarily large number N of vertices such that for some 0 < δ _k < 1 at least (1 ? (δ _k ) ^d )( _k ^N ) k-subsets of the set of vertices span faces of P, and (3) for an integer k ≥ 2 and α > 0, we construct a centrally symmetric polytope Q with an arbitrarily large number of vertices N and of dimension d = k ^1+o(1) such that at least $(1 - k^{ - \alpha } )(_k^N )$ k-subsets of the set of vertices span faces of Q.     

A Note on Graph Pebbling

 We say that a graph G is Class 0 if its pebbling number is exactly equal to its number of vertices. For a positive integer d, let k(d) denote the least positive integer so that every graph G with diameter at most d and connectivity at least k(d) is Class 0. The existence of the function k was conjectured by Clarke, Hochberg and Hurlbert, who showed that if the function k exists, then it must satisfy k(d)=Ω(2 ^d /d). In this note, we show that k exists and satisfies k(d)=O(2 ^2d ). We also apply this result to improve the upper bound on the random graph threshold of the Class 0 property. Received: April 19, 1999 Final version received: February 15, 2000     

Large non-planar graphs and an application to crossing-critical graphs

We prove that, for every positive integer k, there is an integer N such that every 4-connected non-planar graph with at least N vertices has a minor isomorphic to K4,k, the graph obtained from a cycle of length 2k+1 by adding an edge joining every pair of vertices at distance exactly k, or the graph obtained from a cycle of length k by adding two vertices adjacent to each other and to every vertex on the cycle. We also prove a version of this for subdivisions rather than minors, and relax the connectivity to allow 3-cuts with one side planar and of bounded size. We deduce that for every integer k there are only finitely many 3-connected 2-crossing-critical graphs with no subdivision isomorphic to the graph obtained from a cycle of length 2k by joining all pairs of diagonally opposite vertices.     

Deficient generalized Fibonacci maximum path graphs

The structure of an acyclic directed graph with n vertices and m edges, maximizing the number of distinct paths between two given vertices, is studied. In previous work it was shown that there exists such a graph containing a Hamiltonian path joining the two given vertices, thus uniquely ordering the vertices. It was further shown that such a graph contains k ? 1 full levels (an edge (i, j) belongs to level t = j ?i) and some edges of level k—a deficient k-generalized Fibonacci graph. We investigate the distribution of the edges in level 3 in a deficient 3-generalized Fibonacci graph, and develop tools that might be useful in extending the results to higher levels.     

Geodesic-pancyclic graphs

A shortest path connecting two vertices u and v is called a u-v geodesic. The distance between u and v in a graph G, denoted by d_G(u,v), is the number of edges in a u-v geodesic. A graph G with n vertices is panconnected if, for each pair of vertices u,v∈V(G) and for each integer k with d_G(u,v)?k?n-1, there is a path of length k in G that connects u and v. A graph G with n vertices is geodesic-pancyclic if, for each pair of vertices u,v∈V(G), every u-v geodesic lies on every cycle of length k satisfying max{2d_G(u,v),3}?k?n. In this paper, we study sufficient conditions of geodesic-pancyclic graphs. In particular, we show that most of the known sufficient conditions of panconnected graphs can be applied to geodesic-pancyclic graphs.     

Upper Bound on the Diameter of a Domination Dot-Critical Graph

A vertex of a graph is called critical if its deletion decreases the domination number, and an edge is called dot-critical if its contraction decreases the domination number. A graph is said to be dot-critical if all of its edges are dot-critical. In this paper, we show that if G is a connected dot-critical graph with domination number k??? 3 and diameter d and if G has no critical vertices, then d??? 2k?3.     

Edge-deletable IM-extendable graphs with minimum number of edges

A graph G is induced matching extendable, shortly IM-extendable, if every induced matching of G is included in a perfect matching of G. For a nonnegative integer k, a graph G is called a k-edge-deletable IM-extendable graph, if, for every F⊆E(G) with |F|=k, G−F is IM-extendable. In this paper, we characterize the k-edge-deletable IM-extendable graphs with minimum number of edges. We show that, for a positive integer k, if G is ak-edge-deletable IM-extendable graph on 2n vertices, then |E(G)|≥(k+2)n; furthermore, the equality holds if and only if either G≅K_k+2,k+2, or k=4r−2 for some integer r≥3 and G≅C₅[N_2r], where N_2r is the empty graph on 2r vertices and C₅[N_2r] is the graph obtained from C₅ by replacing each vertex with a graph isomorphic to N_2r.     

On infinite graphs with a specified number of colorings

In this paper we construct a planar graph of degree four which admits exactly N_u 3-colorings, we prove that such a graph must have degree at least four, and we consider various generalizations. We first allow our graph to have either one or two vertices of infinite degree and/or to admit only finitely many colorings and we note how this effects the degrees of the remaining vertices. We next consider n-colorings for n>3, and we construct graphs which we conjecture (but cannot prove) are of minimal degree. Finally, we consider nondenumerable graphs, and for every 3 <n<ω and every infinite cardinal k we construct a graph of cardinality k which admits exactly kn-colorings. We also show that the number of n-colorings of a denumerable graph can never be strictly between N_u and 2^N_u and that an appropriate generalization holds for at least certain nondenumerable graphs.     

Disconnected Complements of Steinhaus graphs

In 1976 Molluzzo asked for the conditions on a generating string of a Steinhaus graph that would guarantee that its complement would be connected. In this paper we give conditions that guarantee that the complement is not connected and a recursion, for the number of such strings. We also find tight upper and lower bounds for this recursion by examining the recursion d_σ(2k) = d_σ(k)+d_σ(k−1) and d_σ(2k+1) = 2d_σ(k) + 1.     

Complete Multipartite Graphs and the Relaxed Coloring Game

Let k be a positive integer, d be a nonnegative integer, and G be a finite graph. Two players, Alice and Bob, play a game on G by coloring the uncolored vertices with colors from a set X of k colors. At all times, the subgraph induced by a color class must have maximum degree at most d. Alice wins the game if all vertices are eventually colored; otherwise, Bob wins. The least k such that Alice has a winning strategy is called the d-relaxed game chromatic number of G, denoted ?? _g ^d (G). It is known that there exist graphs such that ?? _g ⁰(G)?=?3, but ?? _g ¹(G)?>?3. We will show that for all positive integers m, there exists a complete multipartite graph G such that m?????? _g ⁰(G)?<??? _g ¹(G).     

Competitively Tight Graphs

The competition graph of a digraph D is a (simple undirected) graph which has the same vertex set as D and has an edge between two distinct vertices x and y if and only if there exists a vertex v in D such that (x, v) and (y, v) are arcs of D. For any graph G, G together with sufficiently many isolated vertices is the competition graph of some acyclic digraph. The competition number k(G) of a graph G is the smallest number of such isolated vertices. Computing the competition number of a graph is an NP-hard problem in general and has been one of the important research problems in the study of competition graphs. Opsut [1982] showed that the competition number of a graph G is related to the edge clique cover number θ _E (G) of the graph G via θ _E (G) ? |V(G)| + 2 ≤ k(G) ≤ θ _E (G). We first show that for any positive integer m satisfying 2 ≤ m ≤ |V(G)|, there exists a graph G with k(G) = θ _E (G) ? |V(G)| + m and characterize a graph G satisfying k(G) = θ _E (G). We then focus on what we call competitively tight graphs G which satisfy the lower bound, i.e., k(G) = θ _E (G) ? |V(G)| + 2. We completely characterize the competitively tight graphs having at most two triangles. In addition, we provide a new upper bound for the competition number of a graph from which we derive a sufficient condition and a necessary condition for a graph to be competitively tight.     

On domination and reinforcement numbers in trees

The reinforcement number of a graph is the smallest number of edges that have to be added to a graph to reduce the domination number. We introduce the k-reinforcement number of a graph as the smallest number of edges that have to be added to a graph to reduce the domination number by k. We present an O(k²n) dynamic programming algorithm for computing the maximum number of vertices that can be dominated using γ(G)-k dominators for trees. A corollary of this is a linear-time algorithm for computing the k-reinforcement number of a tree. We also discuss extensions and related problems.     

The degree sequence of a scale‐free random graph process

Recently, Barabási and Albert [2] suggested modeling complex real‐world networks such as the worldwide web as follows: consider a random graph process in which vertices are added to the graph one at a time and joined to a fixed number of earlier vertices, selected with probabilities proportional to their degrees. In [2] and, with Jeong, in [3], Barabási and Albert suggested that after many steps the proportion P(d) of vertices with degree d should obey a power law P(d)αd^?γ. They obtained γ=2.9±0.1 by experiment and gave a simple heuristic argument suggesting that γ=3. Here we obtain P(d) asymptotically for all d≤n^1/15, where n is the number of vertices, proving as a consequence that γ=3. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 18, 279–290, 2001     

Iteratedk-line graphs

For integersk≥2, thek-line graph L_k(G) of a graph G is defined as a graph whose vertices correspond to the complete subgraphs onk vertices in G with two distinct vertices adjacent if the corresponding complete subgraphs have 1 common vertices inG. We define iteratedk-line graphs byL _k ⁿ (G) ?L _k (L _k ^n?1 (G), whereL _k ⁰ (G) ?G. In this paper the iterated behavior of thek-line graph operator is investigated. It turns out that the behavior is quite different fork = 2 (the well-known line graph case),k = 3, and k≥4.     

Weak quasi‐randomness for uniform hypergraphs

We study quasi‐random properties of k‐uniform hypergraphs. Our central notion is uniform edge distribution with respect to large vertex sets. We will find several equivalent characterisations of this property and our work can be viewed as an extension of the well known Chung‐Graham‐Wilson theorem for quasi‐random graphs. Moreover, let K_k be the complete graph on k vertices and M(k) the line graph of the graph of the k‐dimensional hypercube. We will show that the pair of graphs (K_k,M(k)) has the property that if the number of copies of both K_k and M(k) in another graph G are as expected in the random graph of density d, then G is quasi‐random (in the sense of the Chung‐Graham‐Wilson theorem) with density close to d. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2011     

Queue layouts of iterated line directed graphs

In this paper, we study queue layouts of iterated line directed graphs. A k-queue layout of a directed graph consists of a linear ordering of the vertices and an assignment of each arc to exactly one of the k queues so that any two arcs assigned to the same queue do not nest. The queuenumber of a directed graph is the minimum number of queues required for a queue layout of the directed graph.We present upper and lower bounds on the queuenumber of an iterated line directed graph L^k(G) of a directed graph G. Our upper bound depends only on G and is independent of the number of iterations k. Queue layouts can be applied to three-dimensional drawings. From the results on the queuenumber of L^k(G), it is shown that for any fixed directed graph G, L^k(G) has a three-dimensional drawing with O(n) volume, where n is the number of vertices in L^k(G). These results are also applied to specific families of iterated line directed graphs such as de Bruijn, Kautz, butterfly, and wrapped butterfly directed graphs. In particular, the queuenumber of k-ary butterfly directed graphs is determined if k is odd.     

Path and cycle decompositions of complete equipartite graphs: Four parts

We show that a complete equipartite graph with four partite sets has an edge-disjoint decomposition into cycles of length k if and only if k≥3, the partite set size is even, k divides the number of edges in the equipartite graph and the total number of vertices in the graph is at least k. We also show that a complete equipartite graph with four even partite sets has an edge-disjoint decomposition into paths with k edges if and only if k divides the number of edges in the equipartite graph and the total number of vertices in the graph is at least k+1.