Chvátal–Erdös Type Conditions for Hamiltonicity of Claw-Free Graphs

For a graph H, let \(\alpha (H)\) and \(\alpha ^{\prime }(H)\) denote the independence number and the matching number, respectively. Let \(k\ge 2\) and \(r>0\) be given integers. We prove that if H is a k-connected claw-free graph with \(\alpha (H)\le r\), then either H is Hamiltonian or the Ryjá c? ek’s closure \(cl(H)=L(G)\) where G can be contracted to a k-edge-connected \(K_3\)-free graph \(G_0^{\prime }\) with \(\alpha ^{\prime }(G_0^{\prime })\le r\) and \(|V(G_0^{\prime })|\le \max \{3r-5, 2r+1\}\) if \(k\ge 3\) or \(|V(G_0^{\prime })|\le \max \{4r-5, 2r+1\}\) if \(k=2\) and \(G_0^{\prime }\) does not have a dominating closed trail containing all the vertices that are obtained by contracting nontrivial subgraphs. As corollaries, we prove the following:

1. (a)
   A 2-connected claw-free graph H with \(\alpha (H)\le 3\) is either Hamiltonian or \(cl(H)=L(G)\) where G is obtained from \(K_{2,3}\) by adding at least one pendant edge on each degree 2 vertex;
    
2. (b)
   A 3-connected claw-free graph H with \(\alpha (H)\le 7\) is either Hamiltonian or \(cl(H)=L(G)\) where G is a graph with \(\alpha ^{\prime }(G)=7\) that is obtained from the Petersen graph P by adding some pendant edges or subdividing some edges of P.
    

Case (a) was first proved by Xu et al. [19]. Case (b) is an improvement of a result proved by Flandrin and Li [12]. For a given integer \(r>0\), the number of graphs of order at most \(\max \{4r-5, 2r+1\}\) is fixed. The main result implies that improvements to case (a) or (b) by increasing the value of r and by enlarging the collection of exceptional graphs can be obtained with the help of a computer. Similar results involved degree or neighborhood conditions are also discussed.

     

Connected size Ramsey number for matchings vs. small stars or cycles

The notation \(F\rightarrow (G,H)\) means that if the edges of F are colored red and blue, then the red subgraph contains a copy of G or the blue subgraph contains a copy of H. The connected size Ramsey number \(\hat{r}_c(G,H)\) of graphs G and H is the minimum size of a connected graph F satisfying \(F\rightarrow (G,H)\). For \(m \ge 2,\) the graph consisting of m independent edges is called a matching and is denoted by \(mK_2\). In 1981, Erdös and Faudree determined the size Ramsey numbers for the pair \((mK_2, K_{1,t})\). They showed that the disconnected graph \(mK_{1,t} \rightarrow (mK_2,K_{1,t})\) for \( t,m \ge 1\). In this paper, we will determine the connected size Ramsey number \(\hat{r}_c(nK_2, K_{1,3})\) for \(n\ge 2\) and \(\hat{r}_c(3K_2, C_4)\). We also derive an upper bound of the connected size Ramsey number \(\hat{r}_c(nK_2, C_4),\) for \(n\ge 4\).     

On Star–Wheel Ramsey Numbers

For two given graphs \(G_1\) and \(G_2\), the Ramsey number \(R(G_1,G_2)\) is the least integer r such that for every graph G on r vertices, either G contains a \(G_1\) or \(\overline{G}\) contains a \(G_2\). In this note, we determined the Ramsey number \(R(K_{1,n},W_m)\) for even m with \(n+2\le m\le 2n-2\), where \(W_m\) is the wheel on \(m+1\) vertices, i.e., the graph obtained from a cycle \(C_m\) by adding a vertex v adjacent to all vertices of the \(C_m\).     

Random Walks in the Hyperbolic Plane and the Minkowski Question Mark Function

Consider \(G=SL_2(\mathbb {Z})/\{\pm I\}\) acting on the complex upper half plane H by \(h_M(z)=\frac{az\,+\,b}{cz\,+\,d}\) for \(M \in G\). Let \(D=\{z \in H: |z|\ge 1, |\mathfrak {R}(z)|\le 1/2\}\). We consider the set \({\mathcal {E}} \subset G\) with the nine elements M, different from the identity, such that \(\mathrm{tr\,}(MM^T)\le 3\). We equip the tiling of H defined by \(\mathbb {D}=\{h_M(D){:}\, M \in G\}\) with a graph structure where the neighbours are defined by \(h_M(D) \cap h_{M'}(D) \ne \emptyset \), equivalently \(M^{-1}M' \in {\mathcal {E}}\). The present paper studies several Markov chains related to the above structure. We show that the simple random walk on the above graph converges a.s. to a point X of the real line with the same distribution of \(S_2 W^{S_1}\), where \(S_1,S_2,W\) are independent with \(\Pr (S_i=\pm 1)=1/2\) and where W is valued in (0, 1) with distribution \(\Pr (W<w)=\mathbf ? (w)\). Here \(\mathbf ? \) is the Minkowski function. If \(K_1, K_2, \ldots \) are i.i.d with distribution \(\Pr (K_i=n)= 1/2^n\) for \(n=1,2,\ldots \), then \(W= \frac{1}{K_1+\frac{1}{K_2+\ldots }}\): this known result (Isola in Appl Math 5:1067–1090, 2014) is derived again here.     

Solution to a Problem on Hamiltonicity of Graphs Under Ore- and Fan-Type Heavy Subgraph Conditions

A graph G is called claw-o-heavy if every induced claw (\(K_{1,3}\)) of G has two end-vertices with degree sum at least |V(G)|. For a given graph S,  G is called S-f-heavy if for every induced subgraph H of G isomorphic to S and every pair of vertices \(u,v\in V(H)\) with \(d_H(u,v)=2,\) there holds \(\max \{d(u),d(v)\}\ge |V(G)|/2.\) In this paper, we prove that every 2-connected claw-o-heavy and \(Z_3\)-f-heavy graph is hamiltonian (with two exceptional graphs), where \(Z_3\) is the graph obtained by identifying one end-vertex of \(P_4\) (a path with 4 vertices) with one vertex of a triangle. This result gives a positive answer to a problem proposed Ning and Zhang (Discrete Math 313:1715–1725, 2013), and also implies two previous theorems of Faudree et al. and Chen et al., respectively.     

Coloring Complete and Complete Bipartite Graphs from Random Lists

Assign to each vertex v of the complete graph \(K_n\) on n vertices a list L(v) of colors by choosing each list independently and uniformly at random from all f(n)-subsets of a color set \([n] = \{1,\dots , n\}\), where f(n) is some integer-valued function of n. Such a list assignment L is called a random (f(n), [n])-list assignment. In this paper, we determine the asymptotic probability (as \(n \rightarrow \infty \)) of the existence of a proper coloring \(\varphi \) of \(K_n\), such that \(\varphi (v) \in L(v)\) for every vertex v of \(K_n\). We show that this property exhibits a sharp threshold at \(f(n) = \log n\). Additionally, we consider the corresponding problem for the line graph of a complete bipartite graph \(K_{m,n}\) with parts of size m and n, respectively. We show that if \(m = o(\sqrt{n})\), \(f(n) \ge 2 \log n\), and L is a random (f(n), [n])-list assignment for the line graph of \(K_{m,n}\), then with probability tending to 1, as \(n \rightarrow \infty \), there is a proper coloring of the line graph of \(K_{m,n}\) with colors from the lists.     

2-Domination number of generalized Petersen graphs

Let \(G=(V,E)\) be a graph. A subset \(S\subseteq V\) is a k-dominating set of G if each vertex in \(V-S\) is adjacent to at least k vertices in S. The k-domination number of G is the cardinality of the smallest k-dominating set of G. In this paper, we shall prove that the 2-domination number of generalized Petersen graphs \(P(5k+1, 2)\) and \(P(5k+2, 2)\), for \(k>0\), is \(4k+2\) and \(4k+3\), respectively. This proves two conjectures due to Cheng (Ph.D. thesis, National Chiao Tung University, 2013). Moreover, we determine the exact 2-domination number of generalized Petersen graphs P(2k, k) and \(P(5k+4,3)\). Furthermore, we give a good lower and upper bounds on the 2-domination number of generalized Petersen graphs \(P(5k+1, 3), P(5k+2,3)\) and \(P(5k+3, 3).\)     

Some infinite families of Ramsey ($${\varvec{P}}_\mathbf{3},{\varvec{P}}_{{\varvec{n}}}$$)-minimal trees

For any given two graphs G and H, the notation \(F\rightarrow \) (G, H) means that for any red–blue coloring of all the edges of F will create either a red subgraph isomorphic to G or a blue subgraph isomorphic to H. A graph F is a Ramsey (G, H)-minimal graph if \(F\rightarrow \) (G, H) but \(F-e\nrightarrow (G,H)\), for every \(e \in E(F)\). The class of all Ramsey (G, H)-minimal graphs is denoted by \(\mathcal {R}(G,H)\). In this paper, we construct some infinite families of trees belonging to \(\mathcal {R}(P_3,P_n)\), for \(n=8\) and 9. In particular, we give an algorithm to obtain an infinite family of trees belonging to \(\mathcal {R}(P_3,P_n)\), for \(n\ge 10\).     

Homomorphism reductions on Polish groups

In an earlier paper, we introduced the following pre-order on the subgroups of a given Polish group: if G is a Polish group and \(H,L \subseteq G\) are subgroups, we say H is homomorphism reducible to L iff there is a continuous group homomorphism \(\varphi : G \rightarrow G\) such that \(H = \varphi ^{-1} (L)\). We previously showed that there is a \(K_\sigma \) subgroup L of the countable power of any locally compact Polish group G such that every \(K_\sigma \) subgroup of \(G^\omega \) is homomorphism reducible to L. In the present work, we show that this fails in the countable power of the group of increasing homeomorphisms of the unit interval.     

Comparison of graphs associated to a commutative Artinian ring

Let R be a commutative ring with \(1\ne 0\) and the additive group \(R^+\). Several graphs on R have been introduced by many authors, among zero-divisor graph \(\Gamma _1(R)\), co-maximal graph \(\Gamma _2(R)\), annihilator graph AG(R), total graph \( T(\Gamma (R))\), cozero-divisors graph \(\Gamma _\mathrm{c}(R)\), equivalence classes graph \(\Gamma _\mathrm{E}(R)\) and the Cayley graph \(\mathrm{Cay}(R^+ ,Z^*(R))\). Shekarriz et al. (J. Commun. Algebra, 40 (2012) 2798–2807) gave some conditions under which total graph is isomorphic to \(\mathrm{Cay}(R^+ ,Z^*(R))\). Badawi (J. Commun. Algebra, 42 (2014) 108–121) showed that when R is a reduced ring, the annihilator graph is identical to the zero-divisor graph if and only if R has exactly two minimal prime ideals. The purpose of this paper is comparison of graphs associated to a commutative Artinian ring. Among the results, we prove that for a commutative finite ring R with \(|\mathrm{Max}(R)|=n \ge 3\), \( \Gamma _1(R) \simeq \Gamma _2(R)\) if and only if \(R\simeq \mathbb {Z}^n_2\); if and only if \(\Gamma _1(R) \simeq \Gamma _\mathrm{E}(R)\). Also the annihilator graph is identical to the cozero-divisor graph if and only if R is a Frobenius ring.     

Packing chromatic number versus chromatic and clique number

The packing chromatic number \(\chi _{\rho }(G)\) of a graph G is the smallest integer k such that the vertex set of G can be partitioned into sets \(V_i\), \(i\in [k]\), where each \(V_i\) is an i-packing. In this paper, we investigate for a given triple (a, b, c) of positive integers whether there exists a graph G such that \(\omega (G) = a\), \(\chi (G) = b\), and \(\chi _{\rho }(G) = c\). If so, we say that (a, b, c) is realizable. It is proved that \(b=c\ge 3\) implies \(a=b\), and that triples \((2,k,k+1)\) and \((2,k,k+2)\) are not realizable as soon as \(k\ge 4\). Some of the obtained results are deduced from the bounds proved on the packing chromatic number of the Mycielskian. Moreover, a formula for the independence number of the Mycielskian is given. A lower bound on \(\chi _{\rho }(G)\) in terms of \(\Delta (G)\) and \(\alpha (G)\) is also proved.     

Structural Properties of Word Representable Graphs

Given a word \(w=w_1w_2\cdots w_n\) of length n over an ordered alphabet \(\Sigma _k\), we construct a graph \(G(w)=(V(w), E(w))\) such that V(w) has n vertices labeled \(1, 2,\ldots , n\) and for \(i, j \in V(w)\), \((i, j) \in E(w)\) if and only if \(w_iw_j\) is a scattered subword of w of the form \(a_{t}a_{t+1}\), \(a_t \in \Sigma _k\), for some \(1 \le t \le k-1\) with the ordering \(a_t<a_{t+1}\). A graph is said to be Parikh word representable if there exists a word w over \(\Sigma _k\) such that \(G=G(w)\). In this paper we characterize all Parikh word representable graphs over the binary alphabet in terms of chordal bipartite graphs. It is well known that the graph isomorphism (GI) problem for chordal bipartite graph is GI complete. The GI problem for a subclass of (6, 2) chordal bipartite graphs has been addressed. The notion of graph powers is a well studied topic in graph theory and its applications. We also investigate a bipartite analogue of graph powers of Parikh word representable graphs. In fact we show that for G(w), \(G(w)^{[3]}\) is a complete bipartite graph, for any word w over binary alphabet.     

Clique-Coloring Claw-Free Graphs

A clique is defined as a complete subgraph maximal under inclusion and having at least two vertices. A k-clique-coloring of a graph G is an assignment of k colors to the vertices of G such that no clique of G is monochromatic. Bacsó et al. (SIAM J Discrete Math 17:361–376, 2004) noted that the clique-coloring number is unbounded even for the line graphs of complete graphs. In this paper, we prove that a claw-free graph with maximum degree at most 7, except an odd cycle longer than 3, has a 2-clique-coloring by using a decomposition theorem of Chudnovsky and Seymour (J Combin Theory Ser B 98:839–938, 2008) and the limitation of the degree 7 is necessary since the line graph of \(K_{6}\) is a graph with maximum degree 8 but its clique-coloring number is 3 by the Ramsey number \(R(3,3)=6\). In addition, we point out that, if an arbitrary line graph of maximum degree at most d is m-clique-colorable (\(m\ge 3\)), then an arbitrary claw-free graph of maximum degree at most d is also m-clique-colorable.     

Perfect state transfer in Laplacian quantum walk

For a graph G and a related symmetric matrix M, the continuous-time quantum walk on G relative to M is defined as the unitary matrix \(U(t) = \exp (-itM)\), where t varies over the reals. Perfect state transfer occurs between vertices u and v at time \(\tau \) if the (u, v)-entry of \(U(\tau )\) has unit magnitude. This paper studies quantum walks relative to graph Laplacians. Some main observations include the following closure properties for perfect state transfer. If an n-vertex graph has perfect state transfer at time \(\tau \) relative to the Laplacian, then so does its complement if \(n\tau \in 2\pi {\mathbb {Z}}\). As a corollary, the join of \(\overline{K}_{2}\) with any m-vertex graph has perfect state transfer relative to the Laplacian if and only if \(m \equiv 2\pmod {4}\). This was previously known for the join of \(\overline{K}_{2}\) with a clique (Bose et al. in Int J Quant Inf 7:713–723, 2009). If a graph G has perfect state transfer at time \(\tau \) relative to the normalized Laplacian, then so does the weak product \(G \times H\) if for any normalized Laplacian eigenvalues \(\lambda \) of G and \(\mu \) of H, we have \(\mu (\lambda -1)\tau \in 2\pi {\mathbb {Z}}\). As a corollary, a weak product of \(P_{3}\) with an even clique or an odd cube has perfect state transfer relative to the normalized Laplacian. It was known earlier that a weak product of a circulant with odd integer eigenvalues and an even cube or a Cartesian power of \(P_{3}\) has perfect state transfer relative to the adjacency matrix. As for negative results, no path with four vertices or more has antipodal perfect state transfer relative to the normalized Laplacian. This almost matches the state of affairs under the adjacency matrix (Godsil in Discret Math 312(1):129–147, 2011).     

Decomposition of Complete Bipartite Graphs into Cycles of Distinct Even Lengths

Let \(K_{n,n}\) be the complete bipartite graph with two parts of equal size n. In this paper, it is shown that depending on whether n is even or odd, \(K_{n,n}\) or \(K_{n,n}-I\), where I is a 1-factor of \(K_{n,n}\), can be decomposed into cycles of distinct even lengths for any integer \(n \ge 2\) with the exception of \(n = 4\).     

A generalization of zero divisor graphs associated to commutative rings

Let R be a commutative ring with a nonzero identity element. For a natural number n, we associate a simple graph, denoted by \(\Gamma ^n_R\), with \(R^n\backslash \{0\}\) as the vertex set and two distinct vertices X and Y in \(R^n\) being adjacent if and only if there exists an \(n\times n\) lower triangular matrix A over R whose entries on the main diagonal are nonzero and one of the entries on the main diagonal is regular such that \(X^TAY=0\) or \(Y^TAX=0\), where, for a matrix \(B, B^T\) is the matrix transpose of B. If \(n=1\), then \(\Gamma ^n_R\) is isomorphic to the zero divisor graph \(\Gamma (R)\), and so \(\Gamma ^n_R\) is a generalization of \(\Gamma (R)\) which is called a generalized zero divisor graph of R. In this paper, we study some basic properties of \(\Gamma ^n_ R\). We also determine all isomorphic classes of finite commutative rings whose generalized zero divisor graphs have genus at most three.     

2-Arc-transitive cyclic covers of $$K_{n,n}$$

In this paper, a complete classification is achieved of all the regular covers of the complete bipartite graphs \(K_{n,n}\) with cyclic covering transformation group, whose fibre-preserving automorphism group acts 2-arc-transitively. All these covers consist of one threefold covers of \(K_{6,6}\), one twofold cover of \(K_{12, 12}\) and one infinite family X(r, p) of p-fold covers of \(K_{p^r,p^r}\) with p a prime and r an integer such that \(p^r\ge 3\). This infinite family X(r, p) can be derived by a very simple and nice voltage assignment f as follows: \(X(r, p)=K_{p^r, p^r}\times _f \mathbb {Z}_p\), where \(K_{p^r, p^r}\) is a complete bipartite graph with the bipartition \(V=\{ \alpha \bigm |\alpha \in V(r,p)\}\cup \{ \alpha '\bigm |\alpha \in V(r,p)\}\) for the r-dimensional vector space V(r, p) over the field of order p and \(f_{\alpha ,\beta '}=\sum _{i=1}^ra_ib_i,\,\, \mathrm{for\,\,all}\,\,\alpha =(a_i)_r, \beta =(b_i)_r\in V(r,p)\).     

A group of continuous self-maps on a topological groupoid

The group of bisections of groupoids plays an important role in the study of Lie groupoids. In this paper another construction is introduced. Indeed, for a topological groupoid G, the set of all continuous self-maps f on G such that (x, f(x)) is a composable pair for every \(x\in G\), is denoted by \(S_G\). We show that \(S_G\) by a natural binary operation is a monoid. \(S_G(\alpha )\), the group of units in \(S_G\) precisely consists of those \(f\in S_G\) such that the map \(x\mapsto xf(x)\) is a bijection on G. Similar to the group of bisections, \(S_G(\alpha )\) acts on G from the right and on the space of continuous self-maps on G from the left. It is proved that \(S_G(\alpha )\) with the compact- open topology inherited from C(G, G) is a left topological group. For a compact Hausdorff groupoid G it is proved that the group of bisections of \(G^2\) is isomorphic to the group \(S_G(\alpha )\) and the group of transitive bisections of G, \(Bis_T(G)\), is embedded in \(S_G(\alpha )\), where \(G^2\) is the groupoid of all composable pairs.     

On color-preserving automorphisms of Cayley graphs of odd square-free order

An automorphism \(\alpha \) of a Cayley graph \(\mathrm{Cay}(G,S)\) of a group G with connection set S is color-preserving if \(\alpha (g,gs) = (h,hs)\) or \((h,hs^{-1})\) for every edge \((g,gs)\in E(\mathrm{Cay}(G,S))\). If every color-preserving automorphism of \(\mathrm{Cay}(G,S)\) is also affine, then \(\mathrm{Cay}(G,S)\) is a Cayley color automorphism (CCA) graph. If every Cayley graph \(\mathrm{Cay}(G,S)\) is a CCA graph, then G is a CCA group. Hujdurovi? et al. have shown that every non-CCA group G contains a section isomorphic to the non-abelian group \(F_{21}\) of order 21. We first show that there is a unique non-CCA Cayley graph \(\Gamma \) of \(F_{21}\). We then show that if \(\mathrm{Cay}(G,S)\) is a non-CCA graph of a group G of odd square-free order, then \(G = H\times F_{21}\) for some CCA group H, and \(\mathrm{Cay}(G,S) = \mathrm{Cay}(H,T)\mathbin {\square }\Gamma \).     

Uniquely Tree-saturated Graphs

Let H be a graph. A graph G is uniquely H-saturated if G contains no subgraph isomorphic to H, but for every edge e in the complement of G (i.e., for each “nonedge” of G), \(G+e\) contains exactly one subgraph isomorphic to H. The double star \(D_{s,t}\) is the graph formed by beginning with \(K_2\) and adding \(s+t\) new vertices, making s of these adjacent to one endpoint of the \(K_2\) and the other t adjacent to the other endpoint; \(D_{s,s}\) is a balanced double star. Our main result is that the trees T for which there exist an infinite number of uniquely T-saturated graphs are precisely the balanced double stars. In addition we completely characterize uniquely tree-saturated graphs in the case where the tree is a star \(K_{1,t} = D_{0, t-1}\). We show that if T is a double star, then there exists a nontrivial uniquely T-saturated graph. We conjecture that the converse holds; we verify this conjecture for all trees of order at most 6. We conclude by giving some open problems.