Schnyder woods for higher genus triangulated surfaces (abstract)

We study a well known characterization of planar graphs, also called Schnyder wood or Schnyder labelling, which yields a decomposition into vertex spanning trees. The goal is to extend previous algorithms and characterizations designed for planar graphs (corresponding to combinatorial surfaces with the topology of the sphere, i.e., of genus 0) to the more general case of graphs embedded on surfaces of arbitrary genus. We define a new traversal order of the vertices of a triangulated surface of genus g together with an orientation and colouration of the edges that extends the one proposed by Schnyder for the planar case. As a by-product we show how to characterize our edge coloration in terms of genus g maps.     

An algorithm to recognize a middle graph

A graph F is called middle if there exists a graph G such that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the vertices of F and the vertices and edges of G such that two vertices of F are adjacent if and only if the corresponding elements (considered as subsets of the set of vertices) have a non-empty intersection.In this paper we present a linear time algorithm for the recognition of the middle graphs. The algorithm is based on a computer-oriented characterization of middle graphs. We show also how the algorithm can be generalized to recognize the middle graphs of hypergraphs.     

Some results on the lexicographic product of vertex-transitive graphs

Many large graphs can be constructed from existing smaller graphs by using graph operations, for example, the Cartesian product and the lexicographic product. Many properties of such large graphs are closely related to those of the corresponding smaller ones. In this short note, we give some properties of the lexicographic products of vertex-transitive and of edge-transitive graphs. In particular, we show that the lexicographic product of Cayley graphs is a Cayley graph.     

Trivially perfect graphs

An undirected graph is trivially perfect if for every induced subgraph the stability number equals the number of (maximal) cliques. We characterize the trivially perfect graphs as a proper subclass of the triangulated graphs (thus disproving a claim of Buneman [3]), and we relate them to some well-known classes of perfect graphs.     

Higher-order matching polynomials and d-orthogonality

We show combinatorially that the higher-order matching polynomials of several families of graphs are d-orthogonal polynomials. The matching polynomial of a graph is a generating function for coverings of a graph by disjoint edges; the higher-order matching polynomial corresponds to coverings by paths. Several families of classical orthogonal polynomials—the Chebyshev, Hermite, and Laguerre polynomials—can be interpreted as matching polynomials of paths, cycles, complete graphs, and complete bipartite graphs. The notion of d-orthogonality is a generalization of the usual idea of orthogonality for polynomials and we use sign-reversing involutions to show that the higher-order Chebyshev (first and second kinds), Hermite, and Laguerre polynomials are d-orthogonal. We also investigate the moments and find generating functions of those polynomials.     

Recognizing near-bipartite Pfaffian graphs in polynomial time

A matching covered graph is a non-trivial connected graph in which every edge is in some perfect matching. A non-bipartite matching covered graph G is near-bipartite if there are two edges e₁ and e₂ such that G−e₁−e₂ is bipartite and matching covered. In 2000, Fischer and Little characterized Pfaffian near-bipartite graphs in terms of forbidden subgraphs [I. Fischer, C.H.C. Little, A characterization of Pfaffian near bipartite graphs, J. Combin. Theory Ser. B 82 (2001) 175-222.]. However, their characterization does not imply a polynomial time algorithm to recognize near-bipartite Pfaffian graphs. In this article, we give such an algorithm.We define a more general class of matching covered graphs, which we call weakly near-bipartite graphs. This class includes the near-bipartite graphs. We give a polynomial algorithm for recognizing weakly near-bipartite Pfaffian graphs. We also show that Fischer and Little’s characterization of near-bipartite Pfaffian graphs extends to this wider class.     

Some properties of edge intersection graphs of single bend paths on a grid

We consider the family of intersection graphs G of paths on a grid, where every vertex v in G corresponds to a single bend path P_v on a grid, and two vertices are adjacent in G if and only if the corresponding paths share an edge on the grid. We first show that these graphs have the Erdös-Hajnal property. Then we present some properties concerning the neighborhood of a vertex in these graphs, and finally we consider some subclasses of chordal graphs for which we give necessary and sufficient conditions to be edge intersection graphs of single bend paths in a grid.     

Tree-decompositions with bags of small diameter

This paper deals with the length of a Robertson-Seymour's tree-decomposition. The tree-length of a graph is the largest distance between two vertices of a bag of a tree-decomposition, minimized over all tree-decompositions of the graph. The study of this invariant may be interesting in its own right because the class of bounded tree-length graphs includes (but is not reduced to) bounded chordality graphs (like interval graphs, permutation graphs, AT-free graphs, etc.). For instance, we show that the tree-length of any outerplanar graph is ⌈k/3⌉, where k is the chordality of the graph, and we compute the tree-length of meshes.More fundamentally we show that any algorithm computing a tree-decomposition approximating the tree-width (or the tree-length) of an n-vertex graph by a factor α or less does not give an α-approximation of the tree-length (resp. the tree-width) unless if α=Ω(n^1/5). We complete these results presenting several polynomial time constant approximate algorithms for the tree-length.The introduction of this parameter is motivated by the design of compact distance labeling, compact routing tables with near-optimal route length, and by the construction of sparse additive spanners.     

The hierarchical product of graphs

A new operation on graphs is introduced and some of its properties are studied. We call it hierarchical product, because of the strong (connectedness) hierarchy of the vertices in the resulting graphs. In fact, the obtained graphs turn out to be subgraphs of the cartesian product of the corresponding factors. Some well-known properties of the cartesian product, such as reduced mean distance and diameter, simple routing algorithms and some optimal communication protocols are inherited by the hierarchical product. We also address the study of some algebraic properties of the hierarchical product of two or more graphs. In particular, the spectrum of the binary hypertree T_m (which is the hierarchical product of several copies of the complete graph on two vertices) is fully characterized; turning out to be an interesting example of graph with all its eigenvalues distinct. Finally, some natural generalizations of the hierarchic product are proposed.     

Optimal acyclic edge colouring of grid like graphs

We determine the values of the acyclic chromatic index of a class of graphs referred to as d-dimensional partial tori. These are graphs which can be expressed as the cartesian product of d graphs each of which is an induced path or cycle. This class includes some known classes of graphs like d-dimensional meshes, hypercubes, tori, etc. Our estimates are exact except when the graph is a product of a path and a number of odd cycles, in which case the estimates differ by an additive factor of at most 1. Our results are also constructive and provide an optimal (or almost optimal) acyclic edge colouring in polynomial time.     

Collapses, products and LC manifolds

The quantum physicists Durhuus and Jonsson (1995) [9] introduced the class of “locally constructible” (LC) triangulated manifolds and showed that all the LC 2- and 3-manifolds are spheres. We show here that for each d>3 some LC d-manifolds are not spheres. We prove this result by studying how to collapse products of manifolds with one facet removed.     

On orthogonal ray graphs

An orthogonal ray graph is an intersection graph of horizontal and vertical rays (half-lines) in the xy-plane. An orthogonal ray graph is a 2-directional orthogonal ray graph if all the horizontal rays extend in the positive x-direction and all the vertical rays extend in the positive y-direction. We first show that the class of orthogonal ray graphs is a proper subset of the class of unit grid intersection graphs. We next provide several characterizations of 2-directional orthogonal ray graphs. Our first characterization is based on forbidden submatrices. A characterization in terms of a vertex ordering follows immediately. Next, we show that 2-directional orthogonal ray graphs are exactly those bipartite graphs whose complements are circular arc graphs. This characterization implies polynomial-time recognition and isomorphism algorithms for 2-directional orthogonal ray graphs. It also leads to a characterization of 2-directional orthogonal ray graphs by a list of forbidden induced subgraphs. We also show a characterization of 2-directional orthogonal ray trees, which implies a linear-time algorithm to recognize such trees. Our results settle an open question of deciding whether a (0,1)-matrix can be permuted to avoid the submatrices .     

On superperfect noncomparability graphs

The class of superperfect graphs, which was previously studied by A. J. Hoffman, E. L. Johnson, and M. C. Golumbic, is a proper subclass of the class of perfect graphs; further, it properly contains the class of comparability graphs. In his book, Golumbic proves that, for split graphs, G is a comparability graph if and only if G is superperfect. Moreover, the fact that split graphs are exactly those graphs which are both triangulated and cotriangulated motivated Golumbic to ask if it is true or false that, for triangulated (or cotriangulated) graphs, G is a comparability graph if and only if G is superperfect. In the present paper, we determine those members of Gallai's list of minimal noncomparability graphs which are superperfect and, as a consequence, we find that the answer to the above question is “false” for triangulated and “true” for cotriangulated graphs.     

The graded structure of Leavitt path algebras

A Leavitt path algebra associates to a directed graph a ?-graded algebra and in its simplest form it recovers the Leavitt algebra L(1, k). In this note, we first study this ?-grading and characterize the (?-graded) structure of Leavitt path algebras, associated to finite acyclic graphs, C _n -comet, multi-headed graphs and a mixture of these graphs (i.e., polycephaly graphs). The last two types are examples of graphs whose Leavitt path algebras are strongly graded. We give a criterion when a Leavitt path algebra is strongly graded and in particular characterize unital Leavitt path algebras which are strongly graded completely, along the way obtaining classes of algebras which are group rings or crossed-products. In an attempt to generalize the grading, we introduce weighted Leavitt path algebras associated to directed weighted graphs which have natural ⊕?-grading and in their simplest form recover the Leavitt algebras L(n, k). We then show that the basic properties of Leavitt path algebras can be naturally carried over to weighted Leavitt path algebras.     

Injective colorings of planar graphs with few colors

An injective coloring of a graph is a vertex coloring where two vertices have distinct colors if a path of length two exists between them. In this paper some results on injective colorings of planar graphs with few colors are presented. We show that all planar graphs of girth ≥ 19 and maximum degree Δ are injectively Δ-colorable. We also show that all planar graphs of girth ≥ 10 are injectively (Δ+1)-colorable, that Δ+4 colors are sufficient for planar graphs of girth ≥ 5 if Δ is large enough, and that subcubic planar graphs of girth ≥ 7 are injectively 5-colorable.     

Extending Persistence Using Poincaré and Lefschetz Duality

Persistent homology has proven to be a useful tool in a variety of contexts, including the recognition and measurement of shape characteristics of surfaces in ℝ³. Persistence pairs homology classes that are born and die in a filtration of a topological space, but does not pair its actual homology classes. For the sublevelset filtration of a surface in ℝ³, persistence has been extended to a pairing of essential classes using Reeb graphs. In this paper, we give an algebraic formulation that extends persistence to essential homology for any filtered space, present an algorithm to calculate it, and describe how it aids our ability to recognize shape features for codimension 1 submanifolds of Euclidean space. The extension derives from Poincaré duality but generalizes to nonmanifold spaces. We prove stability for general triangulated spaces and duality as well as symmetry for triangulated manifolds. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Empty region graphs

A family of proximity graphs, called Empty Region Graphs (ERG) is presented. The vertices of an ERG are points in the plane, and two points are connected if their neighborhood, defined by a region, does not contain any other point. The region defining the neighborhood of two points is a parameter of the graph. This way of defining graphs is not new, and ERGs include several known proximity graphs such as Nearest Neighbor Graphs, β-Skeletons or Θ-Graphs. The main contribution is to provide insight and connections between the definition of ERG and the properties of the corresponding graphs.We give conditions on the region defining an ERG to ensure a number of properties that might be desirable in applications, such as planarity, connectivity, triangle-freeness, cycle-freeness, bipartiteness and bounded degree. These conditions take the form of what we call tight regions: maximal or minimal regions that a region must contain or be contained in to make the graph satisfy a given property. We show that every monotone property has at least one corresponding tight region; we discuss possibilities and limitations of this general model for constructing a graph from a point set.     

Interlace polynomials: Enumeration, unimodality and connections to codes

The interlace polynomialq was introduced by Arratia, Bollobás, and Sorkin. It encodes many properties of the orbit of a graph under edge local complementation (ELC). The interlace polynomial Q, introduced by Aigner and van der Holst, similarly contains information about the orbit of a graph under local complementation (LC). We have previously classified LC and ELC orbits, and now give an enumeration of the corresponding interlace polynomials of all graphs of order up to 12. An enumeration of all circle graphs of order up to 12 is also given. We show that there exist graphs of all orders greater than 9 with interlace polynomials q whose coefficient sequences are non-unimodal, thereby disproving a conjecture by Arratia et al. We have verified that for graphs of order up to 12, all polynomials Q have unimodal coefficients. It has been shown that LC and ELC orbits of graphs correspond to equivalence classes of certain error-correcting codes and quantum states. We show that the properties of these codes and quantum states are related to properties of the associated interlace polynomials.     

On certain spanning subgraphs of embeddings with applications to domination

We prove the existence of certain spanning subgraphs of graphs embedded in the torus and the Klein bottle. Matheson and Tarjan proved that a triangulated disc with n vertices can be dominated by a set of no more than n/3 of its vertices and thus, so can any finite graph which triangulates the plane. We use our existence theorems to prove results closely allied to those of Matheson and Tarjan, but for the torus and the Klein bottle.