Construction of graphs with given circular flow numbers

Suppose r ≥ 2 is a real number. A proper r‐flow of a directed multi‐graph is a mapping such that (i) for every edge , ; (ii) for every vertex , . The circular flow number of a graph G is the least r for which an orientation of G admits a proper r‐flow. The well‐known 5‐flow conjecture is equivalent to the statement that every bridgeless graph has circular flow number at most 5. In this paper, we prove that for any rational number r between 2 and 5, there exists a graph G with circular flow number r. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 43: 304–318, 2003     

Upper total domination in claw‐free graphs

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 (other than itself). The maximum cardinality of a minimal total dominating set of G is the upper total domination number of G, denoted by Γ_t(G). We establish bounds on Γ_t(G) for claw‐free graphs G in terms of the number n of vertices and the minimum degree δ of G. We show that if if , and if δ ≥ 5. The extremal graphs are characterized. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 44: 148–158, 2003     

Explicit sparse almost‐universal graphs for ${\bf {{\cal G}(n, {k \over n})}}$

For any integer n, let be a probability distribution on the family of graphs on n vertices (where every such graph has nonzero probability associated with it). A graph Γ is ‐almost‐universal if Γ satisifies the following: If G is chosen according to the probability distribution , then G is isomorphic to a subgraph of Γ with probability 1 ‐ . For any p ∈ [0,1], let (n,p) denote the probability distribution on the family of graphs on n vertices, where two vertices u and v form an edge with probability p, and the events {u and v form an edge}; u,v ∈ V (G) are mutually independent. For k ≥ 4 and n sufficiently large we construct a ‐almost‐universal‐graph on n vertices and with O(n)polylog(n) edges, where q = ? ? for such k ≤ 6, and where q = ? ? for k ≥ 7. The number of edges is close to the lower bound of Ω( ) for the number of edges in a universal graph for the family of graphs with n vertices and maximum degree k. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2010     

On graphs with subgraphs having large independence numbers

Let G be a graph on n vertices in which every induced subgraph on vertices has an independent set of size at least . What is the largest so that every such G must contain an independent set of size at least q? This is one of the several related questions raised by Erd?s and Hajnal. We show that , investigate the more general problem obtained by changing the parameters s and t, and discuss the connection to a related Ramsey‐type problem. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 56: 149–157, 2007     

A list analogue of equitable coloring

Given lists of available colors assigned to the vertices of a graph G, a list coloring is a proper coloring of G such that the color on each vertex is chosen from its list. If the lists all have size k, then a list coloring is equitable if each color appears on at most vertices. A graph is equitably k-choosable if such a coloring exists whenever the lists all have size k. We prove that G is equitably k-choosable when unless G contains or k is odd and . For forests, the threshold improves to . If G is a 2-degenerate graph (given k ≥ 5) or a connected interval graph (other than ), then G is equitably k-choosable when . © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 44: 166–177, 2003     

Vertex suppression in 3‐connected graphs

To suppress a vertex in a finite graph G means to delete it and add an edge from a to b if a, b are distinct nonadjacent vertices which formed the neighborhood of . Let be the graph obtained from by suppressing vertices of degree at most 2 as long as it is possible; this is proven to be well defined. Our main result states that every 3‐connected graph G has a vertex x such that is 3‐connected unless G is isomorphic to , , or to a wheel for some . This leads to a generator theorem for 3‐connected graphs in terms of series parallel extensions. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 57: 41–54, 2008     

Small degree out‐branchings

Using a suitable orientation, we give a short proof of a strengthening of a result of Czumaj and Strothmann 4 : Every 2‐edge‐connected graph G contains a spanning tree T with the property that for every vertex v. As an analogue of this result in the directed case, we prove that every 2‐arc‐strong digraph D has an out‐branching B such that . A corollary of this is that every k‐arc‐strong digraph D has an out‐branching B such that , where . We conjecture that in this case would be the right (and best possible) answer. If true, this would again imply a strengthening of a result from 4 concerning spanning trees with small degrees in k‐connected graphs when k ≥ 2. We prove that for acyclic digraphs the existence of an out‐branching satisfying prescribed bounds on the out‐degrees of each vertex can be checked in polynomial time. A corollary of this is that the existence of arc‐disjoint branchings , , where the first is an out‐branching rooted at s and the second an in‐branching rooted at t, can be checked in polynomial time for the class of acyclic digraphs © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 42: 297–307, 2003     

Maximum number of colorings of (2k,k2)‐graphs

Let consist of all simple graphs on 2k vertices and edges. For a simple graph G and a positive integer , let denote the number of proper vertex colorings of G in at most colors, and let . We prove that and is the only extremal graph. We also prove that as . © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 56: 135–148, 2007     

Coloring edges of embedded graphs

In this paper, we prove that any graph G with maximum degree , which is embeddable in a surface Σ of characteristic χ(Σ) ≤ 1 and satisfies , is class one. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Graph Theory 35: 197–205, 2000     

The isoperimetric constant of the random graph process

The isoperimetric constant of a graph G on n vertices, i(G), is the minimum of , taken over all nonempty subsets S ⊂ V (G) of size at most n/2, where ∂S denotes the set of edges with precisely one end in S. A random graph process on n vertices, , is a sequence of graphs, where is the edgeless graph on n vertices, and is the result of adding an edge to , uniformly distributed over all the missing edges. The authors show that in almost every graph process equals the minimal degree of as long as the minimal degree is o(log n). Furthermore, it is shown that this result is essentially best possible, by demonstrating that along the period in which the minimum degree is typically Θ(log n), the ratio between the isoperimetric constant and the minimum degree falls from 1 to , its final value. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2008     

On the Eigenvalues of Half‐Linear Boundary Value Problems

We consider the half‐linear boundary value problem where and the weight function q is assumed to change sign. We prove the existence of two sequences , of eigenvalues and derive asymptotic estimates for as .     

Overfull conjecture for graphs with high minimum degree

Chetwynd and Hilton showed that any regular graph G of even order n which has relatively high degree has a 1‐factorization. This is equivalent to saying that under these conditions G has chromatic index equal to its maximum degree . Using this result, we show that any (not necessarily regular) graph G of even order n that has sufficiently high minimum degree has chromatic index equal to its maximum degree providing that G does not contain an “overfull” subgraph, that is, a subgraph which trivially forces the chromatic index to be more than the maximum degree. This result thus verifies the Overfull Conjecture for graphs of even order and sufficiently high minimum degree. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 47: 73–80, 2004     

The generalized Randić index of trees

The generalized Randi?; index of a tree T is the sum over the edges of T of where is the degree of the vertex x in T. For all , we find the minimal constant such that for all trees on at least 3 vertices, , where is the number of vertices of T. For example, when . This bound is sharp up to the additive constant—for infinitely many n we give examples of trees T on n vertices with . More generally, fix and define , where is the number of leaves of T. We determine the best constant such that for all trees on at least 3 vertices, . Using these results one can determine (up to terms) the maximal Randi?; index of a tree with a specified number of vertices and leaves. Our methods also yield bounds when the maximum degree of the tree is restricted. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 56: 270–286, 2007     

Hamilton decompositions of complete multipartite graphs with any 2-factor leave

For m ≥ 1 and p ≥ 2, given a set of integers s₁,…,s_q with for and , necessary and sufficient conditions are found for the existence of a hamilton decomposition of the complete p-partite graph , where U is a 2-factor of consisting of q cycles, the jth cycle having length s_j. This result is then used to completely solve the problem when p = 3, removing the condition that . © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 44: 208–214, 2003     

On the Points on the Unit Circle with Finite b–Adic Expansions

Let be an arbitrary integer base and let be the number of different prime factors of with , . Further let be the set of points on the unit circle with finite –adic expansions of their coordinates and let be the set of angles of the points . Then is an additive group which is the direct sum of infinite cyclic groups and of the finite cyclic group . If in case of the points of are arranged according to the number of digits of their coordinates, then the arising sequence is uniformly distributed on the unit circle. On the other hand, in case of the only points in are the exceptional points (1, 0), (0, 1), (–1, 0), (0, –1). The proofs are based on a canonical form for all integer solutions of .     

Critical groups for complete multipartite graphs and Cartesian products of complete graphs

The critical group of a connected graph is a finite abelian group, whose order is the number of spanning trees in the graph, and which is closely related to the graph Laplacian. Its group structure has been determined for relatively few classes of graphs, e.g., complete graphs and complete bipartite graphs. For complete multipartite graphs , we describe the critical group structure completely. For Cartesian products of complete graphs , we generalize results of H. Bai on the k-dimensional cube, by bounding the number of invariant factors in the critical group, and describing completely its p-primary structure for all primes p that divide none of . © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 44: 231–250, 2003     

Compactness Conditions for the Green Operator in Lp(ℝ) Corresponding to a General Sturm–Liouville Operator

We consider the equation ℝ, where , for ℝ, (ℝ), (ℝ), (ℝ), (ℝ) := C(ℝ)). We give necessary and sufficient conditions under which, regardless of , the following statements hold simultaneously: I) For any (ℝ) Equation (0.1) has a unique solution (ℝ) where $\int ^{\infty}_{-\infty}$ ℝ. II) The operator (ℝ) → (ℝ) is compact. Here is the Green function corresponding to (0.1). This result is applied to study some properties of the spectrum of the Sturm–Liouville operator.     

Implicit linear time‐dependent differential‐difference equations and applications

The paper deals with the differential‐difference equation in a Banach space. The operator coefficient of the delay‐free derivative is allowed to be degenerate. Existence and uniqueness theorems are proved under the main assumption that for every the point is a polar singularity of the resolvent . The results are applied to evolution problems of microwave circuits. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On asymmetric coverings and covering numbers

An asymmetric covering is a collection of special subsets S of an n‐set such that every subset T of the n‐set is contained in at least one special S with . In this paper we compute the smallest size of any for We also investigate “continuous” and “banded” versions of the problem. The latter involves the classical covering numbers , and we determine the following new values: , , , , and . We also find the number of non‐isomorphic minimal covering designs in several cases. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 11: 218–228, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/jcd.10022     

The phase transition in random graphs: A simple proof

The classical result of Erd?s and Rényi asserts that the random graph G(n,p) experiences sharp phase transition around \begin{align*}p=\frac{1}{n}\end{align*} – for any ε > 0 and \begin{align*}p=\frac{1-\epsilon}{n}\end{align*}, all connected components of G(n,p) are typically of size O_ε(log n), while for \begin{align*}p=\frac{1+\epsilon}{n}\end{align*}, with high probability there exists a connected component of size linear in n. We provide a very simple proof of this fundamental result; in fact, we prove that in the supercritical regime \begin{align*}p=\frac{1+\epsilon}{n}\end{align*}, the random graph G(n,p) contains typically a path of linear length. We also discuss applications of our technique to other random graph models and to positional games. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2013