Non-stretchable pseudo-visibility graphs

We exhibit a family of graphs which can be realized as pseudo-visibility graphs of pseudo-polygons, but not of straight-line polygons. The example is based on the characterization of vertex-edge pseudo-visibility graphs of O'Rourke and Streinu [Proc. ACM Symp. Comput. Geometry, Nice, France, 1997, pp. 119–128] and extends a recent result of the author [Proc. ACM Symp. Comput. Geometry, Miami Beach, 1999, pp. 274–280] on non-stretchable vertex-edge visibility graphs. We construct a pseudo-visibility graph for which there exists a unique compatible vertex-edge visibility graph, which is then shown to be non-stretchable. The construction is then extended to an infinite family.     

On Tutte polynomial expansion formulas in perspectives of matroids and oriented matroids

We introduce the active partition of the ground set of an oriented matroid perspective (or morphism, or quotient, or strong map) on a linearly ordered ground set. The reorientations obtained by arbitrarily reorienting parts of the active partition share the same active partition. This yields an equivalence relation for the set of reorientations of an oriented matroid perspective, whose classes are enumerated by coefficients of the Tutte polynomial, and a remarkable partition of the set of reorientations into Boolean lattices, from which we get a short direct proof of a 4-variable expansion formula for the Tutte polynomial in terms of orientation activities. This formula was given in the last unpublished preprint by Michel Las Vergnas; the above equivalence relation and notion of active partition generalize a former construction in oriented matroids by Michel Las Vergnas and the author; and the possibility of such a proof technique in perspectives was announced in the aforementioned preprint. We also briefly highlight how the 5-variable expansion of the Tutte polynomial in terms of subset activities in matroid perspectives comes in a similar way from the known partition of the power set of the ground set into Boolean lattices related to subset activities (and we complete the proof with a property which was missing in the literature). In particular, the paper applies to matroids and oriented matroids on a linearly ordered ground set, and applies to graph and directed graph homomorphisms on a linearly ordered edge-set.     

A lower bound for the number of triangular embeddings of some complete graphs and complete regular tripartite graphs

We prove that, for a certain positive constant a and for an infinite set of values of n, the number of nonisomorphic triangular embeddings of the complete graph K_n is at least n^an2. A similar lower bound is also given, for an infinite set of values of n, on the number of nonisomorphic triangular embeddings of the complete regular tripartite graph K_n,n,n.     

Automorphism groups of Cayley graphs generated by block transpositions and regular Cayley maps

This paper deals with the Cayley graph $\mathrm{Cay}({\mathrm{Sym}}_n,T_n)$, where the generating set consists of all block transpositions. A motivation for the study of these particular Cayley graphs comes from current research in Bioinformatics. As the main result, we prove that $\text{Aut}\left(\mathrm{Cay}({\mathrm{Sym}}_n,T_n)\right)$ is the product of the left translation group and a dihedral group ${\mathsf{D}}_{n+1}$ of order $2(n+1)$. The proof uses several properties of the subgraph $\Gamma$ of $\mathrm{Cay}({\mathrm{Sym}}_n,T_n)$ induced by the set $T_n$. In particular, $\Gamma$ is a $2(n?2)$-regular graph whose automorphism group is ${\mathsf{D}}_{n+1},$ $\Gamma$ has as many as $n+1$ maximal cliques of size $2$, and its subgraph $\Gamma \left(V\right)$ whose vertices are those in these cliques is a 3-regular, Hamiltonian, and vertex-transitive graph. A relation of the unique cyclic subgroup of ${\mathsf{D}}_{n+1}$ of order $n+1$ with regular Cayley maps on ${\text{Sym}}_n$ is also discussed. It is shown that the product of the left translation group and the latter group can be obtained as the automorphism group of a non-$t$-balanced regular Cayley map on ${\text{Sym}}_n$.     

The Poisson equation on complete manifolds with positive spectrum and applications

In this paper we investigate the existence of a solution to the Poisson equation on complete manifolds with positive spectrum and Ricci curvature bounded from below. We show that if a function f has decay f=O(r−1−ε) for some ε>0, where r is the distance function to a fixed point, then the Poisson equation Δu=f has a solution u with at most exponential growth.We apply this result on the Poisson equation to study the existence of harmonic maps between complete manifolds and also existence of Hermitian-Einstein metrics on holomorphic vector bundles over complete manifolds, thus extending some results of Li-Tam and Ni.Assuming moreover that the manifold is simply connected and of Ricci curvature between two negative constants, we can prove that in fact the Poisson equation has a bounded solution and we apply this result to the Ricci flow on complete surfaces.     

The Ferry Cover Problem on Regular Graphs and Small-Degree Graphs

The ferry problem may be viewed as generalizations of the classical wolf-goat-cabbage puzzle. The ferry cover problem is to determine the minimum required boat capacity to safely transport n items represented by a conflict graph. The Alcuin number of a conflict graph is the smallest capacity of a boat for which the graph possesses a feasible ferry schedule. In this paper the authors determine the Alcuin number of regular graphs and graphs with maximum degree at most five.     

Short cycle structures for graphs on surfaces and an open problem of Mohar and Thomassen

In this paper we investigate cycle base structures of a (weighted) graph and show that much information of short cycles is contained in an MCB (i.e., minimum cycle base). After setting up a Hall type theorem for base-transformation, we give a sufficient and necessary condition for a cycle base to be an MCB. Furthermore, we show that the structure of MCB in a (weighted) graph is unique. The property is also true for those having a longest length (although much work has been down in evaluating MCB, little is known for those having a longest length). We use those methods to find out some unknown properties for short cycles sharing particular properties in (unweighted) graphs. As applications, we determine the structures of short cycles in an embedded graph and show that there exist polynomially bounded algorithms in finding a shortest contractible cycle and a shortest two-sided cycle provided such cycles exist. Those answer an open problem of B. Mohar and C. Thomassen.     

Grünbaum colorings of even triangulations on surfaces

A Grünbaum coloring of a triangulation G is a map c : such that for each face f of G, the three edges of the boundary walk of f are colored by three distinct colors. By Four Color Theorem, it is known that every triangulation on the sphere has a Grünbaum coloring. So, in this article, we investigate the question whether each even (i.e., Eulerian) triangulation on a surface with representativity at least r has a Grünbaum coloring. We prove that, regardless of the representativity, every even triangulation on a surface has a Grünbaum coloring as long as is the projective plane, the torus, or the Klein bottle, and we observe that the same holds for any surface with sufficiently large representativity. On the other hand, we construct even triangulations with no Grünbaum coloring and representativity , and 3 for all but finitely many surfaces. In dual terms, our results imply that no snark admits an even map on the projective plane, the torus, or the Klein bottle, and that all but finitely many surfaces admit an even map of a snark with representativity at least 3.     

Some Recent Progress and Applications in Graph Minor Theory

In the core of the seminal Graph Minor Theory of Robertson and Seymour lies a powerful theorem capturing the ``rough' structure of graphs excluding a fixed minor. This result was used to prove Wagner's Conjecture that finite graphs are well-quasi-ordered under the graph minor relation. Recently, a number of beautiful results that use this structural result have appeared. Some of these along with some other recent advances on graph minors are surveyed. Research partly supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, Grant number 16740044, by Sumitomo Foundation, by C & C Foundation and by Inoue Research Award for Young Scientists Supported in part by the Research Grant P1–0297 and by the CRC program On leave from: IMFM & FMF, Department of Mathematics, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia