Regularity 3 in edge ideals associated to bipartite graphs

We focus in this paper on edge ideals associated to bipartite graphs and give a combinatorial characterization of those having regularity 3. When the regularity is strictly bigger than 3, we determine the first step i in the minimal graded free resolution where there exists a minimal generator of degree >i+3, show that at this step the highest degree of a minimal generator is i+4, and determine the corresponding graded Betti number β _i,i+4 in terms of the combinatorics of the graph. The results are then extended to the non-square-free case through polarization. We also study a family of ideals of regularity 4 that play an important role in our main result and whose graded Betti numbers can be completely described through closed combinatorial formulas.     

On the sum of powers of Laplacian eigenvalues of bipartite graphs

For a bipartite graph G and a non-zero real α, we give bounds for the sum of the αth powers of the Laplacian eigenvalues of G using the sum of the squares of degrees, from which lower and upper bounds for the incidence energy, and lower bounds for the Kirchhoff index and the Laplacian Estrada index are deduced.     

Nested bipartite graphs

We investigate a class of bipartite graphs, whose structure is determined by a binary number. The work for this research was supported by the Max Kade Foundation.     

Graphoidal bipartite graphs

A graphoidal cover of a graph G is a collection ψ of (not necessarily open) paths inG such that every path in ψ has at least two vertices, every vertex ofG is an internal vertex of at most one path in ψ and every edge of G is in exactly one path in ψ. Let Ω (ψ) denote the intersection graph of ψ. A graph G is said to be graphoidal if there exists a graphH and a graphoidal cover ψof H such that G is isomorphic to Ω(ψ). In this paper we study the properties of graphoidal graphs and obtain a forbidden subgraph characterisation of bipartite graphoidal graphs.     

Cohen-macaulay bipartite graphs

Let G be a graph on the vertex set V={x ₁, ..., x _n}. Let k be a field and let R be the polynomial ring k[x ₁, ..., x _n]. The graph ideal I(G), associated to G, is the ideal of R generated by the set of square-free monomials x _ix_j so that x _i, is adjacent to x _j. The graph G is Cohen-Macaulay over k if R/I(G) is a Cohen-Macaulay ring. Let G be a Cohen-Macaulay bipartite graph. The main result of this paper shows that G{v} is Cohen-Macaulay for some vertex v in G. Then as a consequence it is shown that the Reisner-Stanley simplicial complex of I(G) is shellable. An example of N. Terai is presented showing these results fail for Cohen-Macaulay non bipartite graphs. Partially supported by COFAA-IPN, CONACyT and SNI, México.     

Unbalanced bipartite factorizations of complete bipartite graphs

We construct a new infinite family of factorizations of complete bipartite graphs by factors all of whose components are copies of a (fixed) complete bipartite graph K_p,q. There are simple necessary conditions for such factorizations to exist. The family constructed here demonstrates sufficiency in many new cases. In particular, the conditions are always sufficient when q=p+1.     

Embeddings of bipartite graphs

If G is a bipartite graph with bipartition A, B then let G_m,n(A, B) be obtained from G by replacing each vertex a of A by an independent set a₁, …, a_m, each vertex b of B by an independent set b₁,…, b_n, and each edge ab of G by the complete bipartite graph with edges a_ib_j (1 ≤ i ≤ m and 1 ≤ j ≤ n). Whenever G has certain types of spanning forests, then cellular embeddings of G in surfaces S may be lifted to embeddings of G_m,n(A, B) having faces of the same sizes as those of G in S. These results are proved by the technique of “excess-current graphs.” They include new genus embeddings for a large class of bipartite graphs.     

Bichromaticity of bipartite graphs

Let B be a bipartite graph with edge set E and vertex bipartition M, N. The bichromaticity β(B) is defined as the maximum number β such that a complete bipartite graph on β vertices is obtainable from B by a sequence of identifications of vertices of M or vertices of N. Let μ = max{∣M∣, ∣N∣}. Harary, Hsu, and Miller proved that β(B) ≥ μ + 1 and that β(T) = μ + 1 for T an arbitrary tree. We prove that β(B) ≤ μ + ∣E∣/μ yielding a simpler proof that β(T) = μ + 1. We also characterize graphs for which K_{μ, 2} is obtainable by such identifications. For Q_K. the graph of the K-dimensional cube, we obtain the inequality 2^K?1 + 2 ≤ β(Q_K) ≤ 2^K?1 + K, the upper bound attainable iff K is a power of 2.     

Forbidden induced bipartite graphs

Given a fixed bipartite graph H, we study the asymptotic speed of growth of the number of bipartite graphs on n vertices which do not contain an induced copy of H. Whenever H contains either a cycle or the bipartite complement of a cycle, the speed of growth is . For every other bipartite graph except the path on seven vertices, we are able to find both upper and lower bounds of the form . In many cases we are able to determine the correct value of c. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 60: 219–241, 2009     

On bipartite zero-divisor graphs

A (finite or infinite) complete bipartite graph together with some end vertices all adjacent to a common vertex is called a complete bipartite graph with a horn. For any bipartite graph G, we show that G is the graph of a commutative semigroup with 0 if and only if it is one of the following graphs: star graph, two-star graph, complete bipartite graph, complete bipartite graph with a horn. We also prove that a zero-divisor graph is bipartite if and only if it contains no triangles. In addition, we give all corresponding zero-divisor semigroups of a class of complete bipartite graphs with a horn and determine which complete r-partite graphs with a horn have a corresponding semigroup for r≥3.     

On bipartite tetravalent graphs

In this paper the determination of all distance-transitive graphs of valency four is completed.     

Cycles in bipartite graphs

For k an integer, let G(a, b, k) denote a simple bipartite graph with bipartition (A, B) where |A| = a ≥ 2, |B| = b ≥ k ≥ 2, and each vertex of A has degree at least k. We prove two results concerning the existence of cycles in G(a, b, k).     

On packing bipartite graphs

G andH, two simple graphs, can be packed ifG is isomorphic to a subgraph of , the complement ofH. A theorem of Catlin, Spencer and Sauer gives a sufficient condition for the existence of packing in terms of the product of the maximal degrees ofG andH. We improve this theorem for bipartite graphs. Our condition involves products of a maximum degree with an average degree. Our relaxed condition still guarantees a packing of the two bipartite graphs.the paper was written while the authors were graduate students at the University of Chicago and was completed while the first author was at M.I.T. The work of the first author was supported in part by the Air Force under Contract OSR-86-0076 and by DIMACS (Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science), a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center-NSF-STC88-09648. The work of the second author was supported in part by NSF grant CCR-8706518.     

On Hamiltonian bipartite graphs

Various sufficient conditions for the existence of Hamiltonian circuits in ordinary graphs are known. In this paper the analogous results for bipartite graphs are obtained.     

Domination in bipartite graphs

We prove that the domination number of a graph of order n and minimum degree at least 2 that does not contain cycles of length 4, 5, 7, 10 or 13 is at most . Furthermore, we derive upper bounds on the domination number of bipartite graphs of given minimum degree.     

Shellable graphs and sequentially Cohen-Macaulay bipartite graphs

Associated to a simple undirected graph G is a simplicial complex ΔG whose faces correspond to the independent sets of G. We call a graph G shellable if ΔG is a shellable simplicial complex in the non-pure sense of Björner-Wachs. We are then interested in determining what families of graphs have the property that G is shellable. We show that all chordal graphs are shellable. Furthermore, we classify all the shellable bipartite graphs; they are precisely the sequentially Cohen-Macaulay bipartite graphs. We also give a recursive procedure to verify if a bipartite graph is shellable. Because shellable implies that the associated Stanley-Reisner ring is sequentially Cohen-Macaulay, our results complement and extend recent work on the problem of determining when the edge ideal of a graph is (sequentially) Cohen-Macaulay. We also give a new proof for a result of Faridi on the sequentially Cohen-Macaulayness of simplicial forests.     

Graphs whose powers are chordal and graphs whose powers are interval graphs

The main theorem of this paper gives a forbidden induced subgraph condition on G that is sufficient for chordality of G^m. This theorem is a generalization of a theorem of Balakrishnan and Paulraja who had provided this only for m = 2. We also give a forbidden subgraph condition on G that is sufficient for chordality of G^2m. Similar conditions on G that are sufficient for G^m being an interval graph are also obtained. In addition it is easy to see, that no family of forbidden (induced) subgraphs of G is necessary for G^m being chordal or interval graph. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.