Vertex pancyclic in‐tournaments

An in‐tournament is an oriented graph such that the negative neighborhood of every vertex induces a tournament. The topic of this paper is to investigate vertex k‐pancyclicity of in‐tournaments of order n, where for some 3 ≤ k ≤ n, every vertex belongs to a cycle of length p for every k ≤ p ≤ n. We give sharp lower bounds for the minimum degree such that a strong in‐tournament is vertex k‐pancyclic for k ≤ 5 and k ≥ n − 3. In the latter case, we even show that the in‐tournaments in consideration are fully (n − 3)‐extendable which means that every vertex belongs to a cycle of length n − 3 and that the vertex set of every cycle of length at least n − 3 is contained in a cycle of length one greater. In accordance with these results, we state the conjecture that every strong in‐tournament of order n with minimum degree greater than is vertex k‐pancyclic for 5 < k < n − 3, and we present a family of examples showing that this bound would be best possible. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Graph Theory 36: 84–104, 2001     

Rooted Spanning Trees in Tournaments

A tournament of order n is an orientation of a complete graph with n vertices, and is specified by its vertex set V(T) and edge set E(T). A rooted tree is a directed tree such that every vertex except the root has in-degree 1, while the root has in-degree 0. A rooted k-tree is a rooted tree such that every vertex except the root has out-degree at most k; the out-degree of the root can be larger than k. It is well-known that every tournament contains a rooted spanning tree of depth at most 2; and the root of such a tree is also called a king in the literature. This result was strengthened to the following one: Every tournament contains a rooted spanning 2-tree of depth at most 2. We prove that every tournament of order n≥800 contains a spanning rooted special 2-tree in this paper, where a rooted special 2-tree is a rooted 2-tree of depth 2 such that all except possibly one, non-root, non-leaf vertices, have out-degree 2 in the tree. Revised: November 9, 1998     

Unavoidable trees in tournaments

An oriented tree T on n vertices is unavoidable if every tournament on n vertices contains a copy of T. In this paper, we give a sufficient condition for T to be unavoidable, and use this to prove that almost all labeled oriented trees are unavoidable, verifying a conjecture of Bender and Wormald. We additionally prove that every tournament on vertices contains a copy of every oriented tree T on n vertices with polylogarithmic maximum degree, improving a result of Kühn, Mycroft, and Osthus.     

The structure of 4‐strong tournaments containing exactly three out‐arc pancyclic vertices

Yao et al. (Discrete Appl Math 99 (2000), 245–249) proved that every strong tournament contains a vertex u such that every out‐arc of u is pancyclic and conjectured that every k‐strong tournament contains k such vertices. At present, it is known that this conjecture is true for k = 1, 2, 3 and not true for k?4. In this article, we obtain a sufficient and necessary condition for a 4‐strong tournament to contain exactly three out‐arc pancyclic vertices, which shows that a 4‐strong tournament contains at least four out‐arc pancyclic vertices except for a given class of tournaments. Furthermore, our proof yields a polynomial algorithm to decide if a 4‐strong tournament has exactly three out‐arc pancyclic vertices.     

Spanning trees in randomly perturbed graphs

A classical result of Komlós, Sárközy, and Szemerédi states that every n‐vertex graph with minimum degree at least (1/2 + o(1))n contains every n‐vertex tree with maximum degree . Krivelevich, Kwan, and Sudakov proved that for every n‐vertex graph G_α with minimum degree at least αn for any fixed α > 0 and every n‐vertex tree T with bounded maximum degree, one can still find a copy of T in G_α with high probability after adding O(n) randomly chosen edges to G_α. We extend the latter results to trees with (essentially) unbounded maximum degree; for a given and α > 0, we determine up to a constant factor the number of random edges that we need to add to an arbitrary n‐vertex graph with minimum degree αn in order to guarantee with high probability a copy of any fixed n‐vertex tree with maximum degree at most Δ.     

On cliques and bicliques

For integers m, n ≥ 2, let g(m, n) be the minimum order of a graph, where every vertex belongs to both a clique K_m of order m and a biclique K(n, n). We show that g(m, n) = 2(m + n − 2) if m ≤ n − 2. Furthermore, for m ≥ n − 1, we establish that ≡ 0 mod(n − 1) or, if m is sufficiently large and is not an integer. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Graph Theory 34: 60–66, 2000     

On k‐ary spanning trees of tournaments

It is well known that every tournament contains a Hamiltonian path, which can be restated as that every tournament contains a unary spanning tree. The purpose of this article is to study the general problem of whether a tournament contains a k‐ary spanning tree. In particular, we prove that, for any fixed positive integer k, there exists a minimum number h(k) such that every tournament of order at least h(k) contains a k‐ary spanning tree. The existence of a Hamiltonian path for any tournament is the same as h(1) = 1. We then show that h(2) = 4 and h(3) = 8. The values of h(k) remain unknown for k ≥ 4. © 1999 John & Sons, Inc. J Graph Theory 30: 167–176, 1999     

An approximate version of Sumner?s universal tournament conjecture

Sumner?s universal tournament conjecture states that any tournament on 2n−2 vertices contains a copy of any directed tree on n vertices. We prove an asymptotic version of this conjecture, namely that any tournament on (2+o(1))n vertices contains a copy of any directed tree on n vertices. In addition, we prove an asymptotically best possible result for trees of bounded degree, namely that for any fixed Δ, any tournament on (1+o(1))n vertices contains a copy of any directed tree on n vertices with maximum degree at most Δ.     

Finding an Oriented Hamiltonian Path in a Tournament

We present an O(n²) algorithm for finding a specified oriented path of order at least n in a tournament of order n. Using this algorithm, we present an O(n²) algorithm that finds a specified oriented path from a given vertex if one exists.     

The number of vertices whose out-arcs are pancyclic in a 2-strong tournament

An arc going out from a vertex x in a digraph is called an out-arc of x. Yao et al. [Discrete Appl. Math. 99 (2000) 245-249] proved that every strong tournament contains a vertex x such that all out-arcs of x are pancyclic. Recently, Yeo [J. Graph Theory 50 (2005) 212-219] proved that each 3-strong tournament contains two such vertices. In this paper, we confirm that Yeo's result is also true for 2-strong tournaments. Our proof implies a polynomial algorithm to find two such vertices.     

The Number of Out-Pancyclic Vertices in a Strong Tournament

An arc in a tournament T with n ≥ 3 vertices is called pancyclic, if it belongs to a cycle of length l for all 3 ≤ l ≤ n. We call a vertex u of T an out-pancyclic vertex of T, if each out-arc of u is pancyclic in T. Yao et al. (Discrete Appl. Math. 99, 245–249, 2000) proved that every strong tournament contains an out-pancyclic vertex. For strong tournaments with minimum out-degree 1, Yao et al. found an infinite class of strong tournaments, each of which contains exactly one out-pancyclic vertex. In this paper, we prove that every strong tournament with minimum out-degree at least 2 contains three out-pancyclic vertices. Our result is best possible since there is an infinite family of strong tournaments with minimum degree at least 2 and no more than 3 out-pancyclic vertices.     

On avoidable and unavoidable trees

A directed tree is a rooted tree if there is one vertex (the root) of in-degree 0 and every other vertex has in-degree 1. The depth of a rooted tree is the length of a longest path from the root. A directed graph G is called n-unavoidable if every tournament of order n contains it as a subgraph. M. Saks and V. Sós [“On Unavoidable Subgraphs of Tournaments,” Colloquia Mathematica Societatis Janos Bolyai 37, Finite and Infinite Sets, Eger, Hungary (1981), 663–674] constructed unavoidable rooted spanning trees of depth 3. There they wrote, “It is natural to ask how small the depth of a spanning n-unavoidable rooted tree can be.” In this paper we construct unavoidable rooted spanning trees of depth 2. Note that the depth 2 is the best we can do. For each n define λ(n) to be the largest real number such that every claw with degree d ≤ λ(n)n is n-unavoidable. The example in X. Lu [“On Claws Belonging to Every Tournament,” Combinatorica, Vol. 11 (1991), pp. 173–179] showed that λ(n) < 1/2 for sufficiently large n, but the upper bound on λ(n) given there tends to 1/2 for large n. Let λ be the lim sup of λ(n) as n tends to infinity. In this paper we show that λ is strictly less than 1/2, specifically λ ≤ 25/52. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Every vertex a king

A king in a tournament is a vertex which can reach every other vertex via a 1-path or 2-path. A new inductive proof is given for the existence of an n-tournament with exactly k kings for all integers n ? k ? 1 with the following exceptions: k = 2 with n arbitrary, and n = k = 4 (in which cases no such n-tournament exists). Also, given an n-tournament T, the smallest order m is determined so that there exists an m-tournament W which contains T as a subtournament and so that every vertex of W is a king. Bounds are obtained in a similar problem in which the kings of W are exactly the vertices of T.     

Total domination in 2‐connected graphs and in graphs with no induced 6‐cycles

A set S of vertices in a graph G is a total dominating set of G if every vertex of G is adjacent to some vertex in S. The minimum cardinality of a total dominating set of G is the total domination number γ_t(G) of G. It is known [J Graph Theory 35 (2000), 21–45] that if G is a connected graph of order n > 10 with minimum degree at least 2, then γ_t(G) ≤ 4n/7 and the (infinite family of) graphs of large order that achieve equality in this bound are characterized. In this article, we improve this upper bound of 4n/7 for 2‐connected graphs, as well as for connected graphs with no induced 6‐cycle. We prove that if G is a 2‐connected graph of order n > 18, then γ_t(G) ≤ 6n/11. Our proof is an interplay between graph theory and transversals in hypergraphs. We also prove that if G is a connected graph of order n > 18 with minimum degree at least 2 and no induced 6‐cycle, then γ_t(G) ≤ 6n/11. Both bounds are shown to be sharp. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 60: 55–79, 2009     

Out-arc pancyclicity of vertices in tournaments

Yao, Guo and Zhang [T. Yao, Y. Guo, K. Zhang, Pancyclic out-arcs of a vertex in a tournament, Discrete Appl. Math. 99 (2000) 245-249.] proved that every strong tournament contains a vertex u such that every out-arc of u is pancyclic. In this paper, we prove that every strong tournament with minimum out-degree at least two contains two such vertices. Yeo [A. Yeo, The number of pancyclic arcs in a k-strong tournament, J. Graph Theory 50 (2005) 212-219.] conjectured that every 2-strong tournament has three distinct vertices {x,y,z}, such that every arc out of x,y and z is pancyclic. In this paper, we also prove that Yeo’s conjecture is true.     

Landau's inequalities for tournament scores and a short proof of a theorem on transitive sub‐tournaments

Ao and Hanson, and Guiduli, Gyárfás, Thomassé and Weidl independently, proved the following result: For any tournament score sequence S = (s₁, s₂, … ,s_n) with s₁≤s₂ ≤ … ≤ s_n, there exists a tournament T on vertex set {1,2, …, n} such that the score of each vertex i is s_i and the sub‐tournaments of T on both the even and the odd indexed vertices are transitive in the given order; that is, i dominates j whenever i > j and i ≡ j (mod 2). In this note, we give a much shorter proof of the result. In the course of doing so, we show that the score sequence of a tournament satisfies a set of inequalities which are individually stronger than the well‐known set of inequalities of Landau, but collectively the two sets of inequalities are equivalent. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Graph Theory 38: 244–254, 2001     

Solution of a conjecture of Tewes and Volkmann regarding extendable cycles in in‐tournaments

A directed cycle C of a digraph D is extendable if there exists a directed cycle C′ in D that contains all vertices of C and an additional one. In 1989, Hendry defined a digraph D to be cycle extendable if it contains a directed cycle and every non‐Hamiltonian directed cycle of D is extendable. Furthermore, D is fully cycle extendable if it is cycle extendable and every vertex of D belongs to a directed cycle of length three. In 2001, Tewes and Volkmann extended these definitions in considering only directed cycles whose length exceed a certain bound 3≤k<n: a digraph D is k ‐extendable if every directed cycle of length t, where k≤t<n, is extendable. Moreover, D is called fully k ‐extendable if D is k ‐extendable and every vertex of D belongs to a directed cycle of length k. An in‐tournament is an oriented graph such that the in‐neighborhood of every vertex induces a tournament. This class of digraphs which generalizes the class of tournaments was introduced by Bang‐Jensen, Huang and Prisner in 1993. Tewes and Volkmann showed that every connected in‐tournament D of order n with minimum degree δ≥1 is ( ) ‐extendable. Furthermore, if D is a strongly connected in‐tournament of order n with minimum degree δ=2 or , then D is fully ( ) ‐extendable. In this article we shall see that if , every vertex of D belongs to a directed cycle of length , which means that D is fully ( ) ‐extendable. This confirms a conjecture of Tewes and Volkmann. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 63: 82–92, 2010     

The spanning trees forced by the path and the star

A set S of trees of order n forces a tree T if every graph having each tree in S as a spanning tree must also have T as a spanning tree. A spanning tree forcing set for order n that forces every tree of order n. A spanning-tree forcing set S is a test set for panarboreal graphs, since a graph of order n is panarboreal if and only if it has all of the trees in S as spanning trees. For each positive integer n ≠ 1, the star belongs to every spanning tree forcing set for order n. The main results of this paper are a proof that the path belongs to every spanning-tree forcing set for each order n ∉ {1, 6, 7, 8} and a computationally tractable characterization of the trees of order n ≥ 15 forced by the path and the star. Corollaries of those results include a construction of many trees that do not belong to any minimal spanning tree forcing set for orders n ≥ 15 and a proof that the following related decision problem is NP-complete: an instance is a pair (G, T) consisting of a graph G of order n and maximum degree n - 1 with a hamiltonian path, and a tree T of order n; the problem is to determine whether T is a spanning tree of G. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

A note on vertex pancyclic oriented graphs

Let D be an oriented graph of order n ≥ 9, minimum degree at least n − 2, such that, for the choice of distinct vertices x and y, either xy ∈ E(D) or d⁺(x) + d⁻(y) ≥ n − 3. Song (J. Graph Theory 18 (1994), 461–468) proved that D is pancyclic. In this note, we give a short proof, based on Song's result, that D is, in fact, vertex pancyclic. This also generalizes a result of Jackson (J. Graph Theory 5 (1981), 147–157) for the existence of a hamiltonian cycle in oriented graphs. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Graph Theory 31: 313–318, 1999     

Subdivisions of Transitive Tournaments

We prove that, for r ≥ 2 andn ≥ n(r), every directed graph with n vertices and more edges than the r -partite Turán graph T(r, n) contains a subdivision of the transitive tournament on r + 1 vertices. Furthermore, the extremal graphs are the orientations ofT (r, n) induced by orderings of the vertex classes.