Arc‐Disjoint Cycles and Feedback Arc Sets

Isaak posed the following problem. Suppose T is a tournament having a minimum feedback arc set, which induces an acyclic digraph with a hamiltonian path. Is it true that the maximum number of arc‐disjoint cycles in T equals the cardinality of minimum feedback arc set of T? We prove that the answer to the problem is in the negative.     

Arc‐Disjoint In‐ and Out‐Branchings With the Same Root in Locally Semicomplete Digraphs

Deciding whether a digraph contains a pair of arc‐disjoint in‐ and out‐branchings rooted at a specified vertex is a well‐known NP‐complete problem (as proved by Thomassen, see 2 ). This problem has been shown to be polynomial time solvable for semicomplete digraphs 2 and for quasi‐transitive digraphs 6 . In this article, we study the problem for locally semicomplete digraphs. We characterize locally semicomplete digraphs that contain a pair of arc‐disjoint in‐ and out‐branchings rooted at a specified vertex. Our proofs are constructive and imply the existence of a polynomial time algorithm for finding the desired branchings when they exist. Our results generalizes those from 2 for semicomplete digraphs and solves an open problem from 4 .     

Cycle Transversals in Tournaments with Few Vertex Disjoint Cycles

We prove that every tournament T with no three disjoint cycles contains a set X of at most four vertices such that is acyclic.     

Disjoint Paths in Decomposable Digraphs

The k‐linkage problem is as follows: given a digraph and a collection of k terminal pairs such that all these vertices are distinct; decide whether D has a collection of vertex disjoint paths such that is from to for . A digraph is k‐linked if it has a k‐linkage for every choice of 2k distinct vertices and every choice of k pairs as above. The k‐linkage problem is NP‐complete already for [11] and there exists no function such that every ‐strong digraph has a k‐linkage for every choice of 2k distinct vertices of D [17]. Recently, Chudnovsky et al. [9] gave a polynomial algorithm for the k‐linkage problem for any fixed k in (a generalization of) semicomplete multipartite digraphs. In this article, we use their result as well as the classical polynomial algorithm for the case of acyclic digraphs by Fortune et al. [11] to develop polynomial algorithms for the k‐linkage problem in locally semicomplete digraphs and several classes of decomposable digraphs, including quasi‐transitive digraphs and directed cographs. We also prove that the necessary condition of being ‐strong is also sufficient for round‐decomposable digraphs to be k‐linked, obtaining thus a best possible bound that improves a previous one of . Finally we settle a conjecture from [3] by proving that every 5‐strong locally semicomplete digraph is 2‐linked. This bound is also best possible (already for tournaments) [1].     

Anti‐Ramsey Problems for t Edge‐Disjoint Rainbow Spanning Subgraphs: Cycles,Matchings, or Trees

We seek the maximum number of colors in an edge‐coloring of the complete graph not having t edge‐disjoint rainbow spanning subgraphs of specified types. Let , , and denote the answers when the spanning subgraphs are cycles, matchings, or trees, respectively. We prove for and for . We prove for and for . We also provide constructions for the more general problem in which colorings are restricted so that colors do not appear on more than q edges at a vertex.     

On 5‐Cycles and 6‐Cycles in Regular n‐Tournaments

Let T be a tournament of order n and be the number of cycles of length m in T. For and odd n, the maximum of is achieved for any regular tournament of order n (M. G. Kendall and B. Babington Smith, 1940), and in the case it is attained only for the unique regular locally transitive tournament RLT_n of order n (U. Colombo, 1964). A lower bound was also obtained for in the class of regular tournaments of order n (A. Kotzig, 1968). This bound is attained if and only if T is doubly regular (when ) or nearly doubly regular (when ) (B. Alspach and C. Tabib, 1982). In the present article, we show that for any regular tournament T of order n, the equality holds. This allows us to reduce the case to the case In turn, the pure spectral expression for obtained in the class implies that for a regular tournament T of order the inequality holds, with equality if and only if T is doubly regular or T is the unique regular tournament of order 7 that is neither doubly regular nor locally transitive. We also determine the value of c₆(RLT_n) and conjecture that this value coincides with the minimum number of 6‐cycles in the class for each odd      

A Minimum Degree Result for Disjoint Cycles and Forests in Graphs

F on s edges and k disjoint cycles. The main result is the following theorem. Let F be a forest on s edges without isolated vertices and let G be a graph of order at least with minimum degree at least , where k, s are nonnegative integers. Then G contains the disjoint union of the forest F and k disjoint cycles. This theorem provides a common generalization of previous results of Corrádi & Hajnal [4] and Brandt [3] who considered the cases (cycles only) and (forests only), respectively. Received: October 13, 1995     

Mutually Disjoint 5‐Designs and 5‐Spontaneous Emission Error Designs from Extremal Ternary Self‐Dual Codes

It is known that extremal ternary self‐dual codes of length mod 12) yield 5‐designs. Previously, mutually disjoint 5‐designs were constructed by using single known generator matrix of bordered double circulant ternary self‐dual codes (see [1, 2]). In this paper, a number of generator matrices of bordered double circulant extremal ternary self‐dual codes are searched with the aid of computer. Using these codes we give many mutually disjoint 5‐designs. As a consequence, a list of 5‐spontaneous emission error designs are obtained.     

Disjoint 3‐Cycles in Tournaments: A Proof of The Bermond–Thomassen Conjecture for Tournaments

We prove that every tournament with minimum out‐degree at least contains k disjoint 3‐cycles. This provides additional support for the conjecture by Bermond and Thomassen that every digraph D of minimum out‐degree contains k vertex disjoint cycles. We also prove that for every , when k is large enough, every tournament with minimum out‐degree at least contains k disjoint cycles. The linear factor 1.5 is best possible as shown by the regular tournaments.     

Disjoint perfect matchings in 3‐uniform hypergraphs

For a hypergraph H, let denote the minimum vertex degree in H. Kühn, Osthus, and Treglown proved that, for any sufficiently large integer n with , if H is a 3‐uniform hypergraph with order n and then H has a perfect matching, and this bound on is best possible. In this article, we show that under the same conditions, H contains at least pairwise disjoint perfect matchings, and this bound is sharp.     

Regular Hypertournaments and Arc‐Pancyclicity

A k‐hypertournament H on n vertices () is a pair , where V is the vertex set of H and A is a set of k‐tuples of vertices, called arcs, such that for all subsets with , A contains exactly one permutation of S as an arc. Recently, Li et al. showed that any strong k‐hypertournament H on n vertices, where , is vertex‐pancyclic, an extension of Moon's theorem for tournaments. In this article, we examine several generalizations of regular tournaments and prove the following generalization of Alspach's theorem concerning arc‐pancyclicity: Every Σ‐regular k‐hypertournament on n vertices, where , is arc‐pancyclic.     

DAG‐Width and Circumference of Digraphs

We prove that every digraph of circumference l has DAG‐width at most l. This is best possible and solves a recent conjecture from S. Kintali (ArXiv:1401.2662v1 [math.CO], January 2014).¹ As a consequence of this result we deduce that the k‐linkage problem is polynomially solvable for every fixed k in the class of digraphs with bounded circumference. This answers a question posed in J. Bang‐Jensen, F. Havet, and A. K. Maia (Theor Comput Sci 562 (2014), 283–303). We also prove that the weak k‐linkage problem (where we ask for arc‐disjoint paths) is polynomially solvable for every fixed k in the class of digraphs with circumference 2 as well as for digraphs with a bounded number of disjoint cycles each of length at least 3. The case of bounded circumference digraphs is still open. Finally, we prove that the minimum spanning strong subdigraph problem is NP‐hard on digraphs of DAG‐width at most 5.     

Arc‐chromatic number of digraphs in which every vertex has bounded outdegree or bounded indegree

A k‐digraph is a digraph in which every vertex has outdegree at most k. A ‐digraph is a digraph in which a vertex has either outdegree at most k or indegree at most l. Motivated by function theory, we study the maximum value Φ (k) (resp. ) of the arc‐chromatic number over the k‐digraphs (resp. ‐digraphs). El‐Sahili [3] showed that . After giving a simple proof of this result, we show some better bounds. We show and where θ is the function defined by . We then study in more detail properties of Φ and . Finally, we give the exact values of and for . © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 53: 315–332, 2006     

Edge‐Disjoint Spanning Trees,Edge Connectivity,and Eigenvalues in Graphs

Let and denote the second largest eigenvalue and the maximum number of edge‐disjoint spanning trees of a graph G, respectively. Motivated by a question of Seymour on the relationship between eigenvalues of a graph G and bounds of , Cioab? and Wong conjectured that for any integers and a d‐regular graph G, if , then . They proved the conjecture for , and presented evidence for the cases when . Thus the conjecture remains open for . We propose a more general conjecture that for a graph G with minimum degree , if , then . In this article, we prove that for a graph G with minimum degree δ, each of the following holds.

• (i) For , if and , then .
• (ii) For , if and , then .

Our results sharpen theorems of Cioab? and Wong and give a partial solution to Cioab? and Wong's conjecture and Seymour's problem. We also prove that for a graph G with minimum degree , if , then the edge connectivity is at least k, which generalizes a former result of Cioab?. As corollaries, we investigate the Laplacian and signless Laplacian eigenvalue conditions on and edge connectivity.     

C‐perfect hypergraphs

Let ${\mathcal{H}}=({{X}},{\mathcal{E}})Let ${\mathcal{H}}=({{X}},{\mathcal{E}})$ be a hypergraph with vertex set X and edge set ${\mathcal{E}}$. A C‐coloring of ${\mathcal{H}}$ is a mapping ?:X→? such that |?(E)|<|E| holds for all edges ${{E}}\in{\mathcal{E}}$ (i.e. no edge is multicolored). We denote by $\bar{\chi}({\mathcal{H}})$ the maximum number |?(X)| of colors in a C‐coloring. Let further $\alpha({\mathcal{H}})$ denote the largest cardinality of a vertex set S?X that contains no ${{E}}\in{\mathcal{E}}$, and $\tau({\mathcal{H}})=|{{X}}|-\alpha({\mathcal{H}})$ the minimum cardinality of a vertex set meeting all $E \in {\mathcal{E}}$. The hypergraph ${\mathcal{H}}$ is called C‐perfect if $\bar{\chi}({\mathcal{H}}\prime)=\alpha({\mathcal{H}}\prime)$ holds for every induced subhypergraph ${\mathcal{H}}\prime\subseteq{\mathcal{H}}$. If ${\mathcal{H}}$ is not C‐perfect but all of its proper induced subhypergraphs are, then we say that it is minimally C‐imperfect. We prove that for all r, k∈? there exists a finite upper bound h(r, k) on the number of minimally C‐imperfect hypergraphs ${\mathcal{H}}$ with $\tau({\mathcal{H}})\le {{k}}$ and without edges of more than r vertices. We give a characterization of minimally C‐imperfect hypergraphs that have τ=2, which also characterizes implicitly the C‐perfect ones with τ=2. From this result we derive an infinite family of new constructions that are minimally C‐imperfect. A characterization of minimally C‐imperfect circular hypergraphs is presented, too. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 64: 132–149, 2010     

χ‐bounds,operations, and chords

A long unichord in a graph is an edge that is the unique chord of some cycle of length at least 5. A graph is long unichord free if it does not contain any long unichord. We prove a structure theorem for long unichord free graph. We give an time algorithm to recognize them. We show that any long unichord free graph G can be colored with at most colors, where ω is the maximum number of pairwise adjacent vertices in G.     

Two‐sided Group Digraphs and Graphs

We study a family of digraphs (directed graphs) that generalises the class of Cayley digraphs. For nonempty subsets of a group G, we define the two‐sided group digraph to have vertex set G, and an arc from x to y if and only if for some and . In common with Cayley graphs and digraphs, two‐sided group digraphs may be useful to model networks as the same routing and communication scheme can be implemented at each vertex. We determine necessary and sufficient conditions on L and R under which may be viewed as a simple graph of valency , and we call such graphs two‐sided group graphs. We also give sufficient conditions for two‐sided group digraphs to be connected, vertex‐transitive, or Cayley graphs. Several open problems are posed. Many examples are given, including one on 12 vertices with connected components of sizes 4 and 8.     

Non‐Critical Vertices and Long Circuits in Strong Tournaments of Order n and Diameter d

Let T be a strong tournament of order with diameter . A vertex w in T is non‐critical if the subtournament is also strong. In the opposite case, it is a critical vertex. In the present article, we show that T has at most critical vertices. This fact and Moon's vertex‐pancyclic theorem imply that for , it contains at least circuits of length . We describe the class of all strong tournaments of order with diameter for which this lower bound is achieved and show that for , the minimum number of circuits of length in a tournament of this class is equal to . In turn, the minimum among all strong tournaments of order with diameter 2 grows exponentially with respect to n for any given . Finally, for , we select a strong tournament of order n with diameter d and conjecture that for any strong tournament T of order n whose diameter does not exceed d, the number of circuits of length ? in T is not less than that in for each possible ?. Moreover, if these two numbers are equal to each other for some given , where , then T is isomorphic to either or its converse . For , this conjecture was proved by Las Vergnas. In the present article, we confirm it for the case . In an Appendix, some problems concerning non‐critical vertices are considered for generalizations of tournaments.     

Highly Connected Infinite Digraphs Without Edge‐Disjoint Back and Forth Paths Between a Certain Vertex Pair

We construct for all a k‐edge‐connected digraph D with such that there are no edge‐disjoint and paths. We use in our construction “self‐similar” graphs which technique could be useful in other problems as well.     

Cycles with two blocks in k‐chromatic digraphs

Let k and ℓ be positive integers. A cycle with two blocks is a digraph obtained by an orientation of an undirected cycle, which consists of two internally (vertex) disjoint paths of lengths at least k and ℓ, respectively, from a vertex to another one. A problem of Addario‐Berry, Havet and Thomassé [J. Combin. Theory Ser. B 97 (2007), 620–626] asked if, given positive integers k and ℓ such that , any strongly connected digraph D containing no has chromatic number at most . In this article, we show that such digraph D has chromatic number at most , improving the previous upper bound of Cohen et al. [Subdivisions of oriented cycles in digraphs with large chromatic number, to appear]. We also show that if in addition D is Hamiltonian, then its underlying simple graph is ‐degenerate and thus the chromatic number of D is at most , which is tight.