Upper Maximal Graphs of Posets

We introduce and study a class of simple graphs, the upper-maximal graphs (UM-graphs), associated to finite posets. The vertices of the UM-graph of a given poset P are the elements of P, and edges are formed by those vertices x and y whenever any maximal element of P that is greater than x is also greater than y or vise versa. We show that the class of UM-graphs constitutes a subclass of comparability graphs. We further provide a characterization of chordal UM-graphs, and compare UM-graphs with known bound graphs of posets.     

The Zerodivisor Graph of a Qoset

We study colorings of quasiordered sets (qosets) with a least element 0. To any qoset Q with 0 we assign a graph (called a zerodivisor graph) whose vertices are labelled by the elements of Q with two vertices x,y adjacent if the only elements lying below x and y are those lying below 0. We prove that for such graphs, the chromatic number and the clique number coincide.     

A study of 3-arc graphs

An arc of a graph is an oriented edge and a 3-arc is a 4-tuple (v,u,x,y) of vertices such that both (v,u,x) and (u,x,y) are paths of length two. The 3-arc graph of a graph G is defined to have the arcs of G as vertices such that two arcs uv,xy are adjacent if and only if (v,u,x,y) is a 3-arc of G. In this paper, we study the independence, domination and chromatic numbers of 3-arc graphs and obtain sharp lower and upper bounds for them. We introduce a new notion of arc-coloring of a graph in studying vertex-colorings of 3-arc graphs.     

Clique or hole in claw-free graphs

Given a claw-free graph and two non-adjacent vertices x and y without common neighbours we prove that there exists a hole through x and y unless the graph contains the obvious obstruction, namely a clique separating x and y. We derive two applications: We give a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of an induced x-z path through y, where x,y,z are prescribed vertices in a claw-free graph; and we prove an induced version of Menger?s theorem between four terminal vertices. Finally, we improve the running time for detecting a hole through x and y and for the Three-in-a-Tree problem, if the input graph is claw-free.     

The competition number of a graph and the dimension of its hole space

The competition graph of a digraph D is a (simple undirected) graph which has the same vertex set as D and has an edge between x and y if and only if there exists a vertex v in D such that (x,v) and (y,v) are arcs of D. For any graph G, G together with sufficiently many isolated vertices is the competition graph of some acyclic digraph. The competition number k(G) of G is the smallest number of such isolated vertices. In general, it is hard to compute the competition number k(G) for a graph G and it has been one of the important research problems in the study of competition graphs to characterize a graph by its competition number. Recently, the relationship between the competition number and the number of holes of a graph has been studied. A hole of a graph is a cycle of length at least 4 as an induced subgraph. In this paper, we conjecture that the dimension of the hole space of a graph is not smaller than the competition number of the graph. We verify this conjecture for various kinds of graphs and show that our conjectured inequality is indeed an equality for connected triangle-free graphs.     

Planar zero divisor graphs of partially ordered sets

We associate a graph G ^?(P) to a partially ordered set (poset, briefly) with the least element?0, as an undirected graph with vertex set P ^?=P?{0} and, for two distinct vertices x and y, x is adjacent to?y in?G ^?(P) if and only if {x,y} ^? ={0}, where, for a subset?S of?P, S ^? is the set of all elements x∈P with x≦s for all s∈S. We study some basic properties of?G ^?(P). Also, we completely investigate the planarity of?G ^?(P).     

Dimension-2 poset competition numbers and dimension-2 poset double competition numbers

Let D=(V(D),A(D)) be a digraph. The competition graph of D, is the graph with vertex set V(D) and edge set . The double competition graph of D, is the graph with vertex set V(D) and edge set . A poset of dimension at most two is a digraph whose vertices are some points in the Euclidean plane R² and there is an arc going from a vertex (x₁,y₁) to a vertex (x₂,y₂) if and only if x₁>x₂ and y₁>y₂. We show that a graph is the competition graph of a poset of dimension at most two if and only if it is an interval graph, at least half of whose maximal cliques are isolated vertices. This answers an open question on the doubly partial order competition number posed by Cho and Kim. We prove that the double competition graph of a poset of dimension at most two must be a trapezoid graph, generalizing a result of Kim, Kim, and Rho. Some connections are also established between the minimum numbers of isolated vertices required to be added to change a given graph into the competition graph, the double competition graph, of a poset and the minimum sizes of certain intersection representations of that graph.     

Path-Connected Partially Ordered Sets

The graph of a partially ordered set (X, ?) has X as its set of vertices and (x,y) is an edge if and only if x covers y or y covers x. The poset is path-connected if its graph is connected. Two integer-valued metrics, distance and fence, are defined for path-connected posets. Together the values of these metrics determine a path-connected poset to within isomorphism and duality. The result holds for path-connected preordered sets where distance and fence are pseudometrics. The result fails for non-path-connected posets.     

Hamiltonicity of 3-Arc Graphs

An arc of a graph is an oriented edge and a 3-arc is a 4-tuple (v, u, x, y) of vertices such that both (v, u, x) and (u, x, y) are paths of length two. The 3-arc graph of a graph G is defined to have vertices the arcs of G such that two arcs uv, xy are adjacent if and only if (v, u, x, y) is a 3-arc of G. We prove that any connected 3-arc graph is hamiltonian, and all iterative 3-arc graphs of any connected graph of minimum degree at least three are hamiltonian. As a corollary we obtain that any vertex-transitive graph which is isomorphic to the 3-arc graph of a connected arc-transitive graph of degree at least three must be hamiltonian. This confirms the conjecture, for this family of vertex-transitive graphs, that all vertex-transitive graphs with finitely many exceptions are hamiltonian. We also prove that if a graph with at least four vertices is Hamilton-connected, then so are its iterative 3-arc graphs.     

Graphs with small boundary

For a pair of vertices x and y in a graph G, we denote by d_G(x,y) the distance between x and y in G. We call x a boundary vertex of y if x and y belong to the same component and d_G(y,v)?d_G(y,x) for each neighbor v of x in G. A boundary vertex of some vertex is simply called a boundary vertex, and the set of boundary vertices in G is called the boundary of G, and is denoted by B(G).In this paper, we investigate graphs with a small boundary. Since a pair of farthest vertices are boundary vertices, |B(G)|?2 for every connected graph G of order at least two. We characterize the graphs with boundary of order at most three. We cannot give a characterization of graphs with exactly four boundary vertices, but we prove that such graphs have minimum degree at most six. Finally, we give an upper bound to the minimum degree of a connected graph G in terms of |B(G)|.     

A Generalization of Opsut’s Lower Bounds for the Competition Number of a Graph

The notion of a competition graph was introduced by Cohen in 1968. The competition graph C(D) of a digraph D is a (simple undirected) graph which has the same vertex set as D and has an edge between two distinct vertices x and y if and only if there exists a vertex v in D such that (x, v) and (y, v) are arcs of D. For any graph G, G together with sufficiently many isolated vertices is the competition graph of some acyclic digraph. In 1978, Roberts defined the competition number k(G) of a graph G as the minimum number of such isolated vertices. In general, it is hard to compute the competition number k(G) for a graph G and it has been one of the important research problems in the study of competition graphs to characterize a graph by its competition number. In 1982, Opsut gave two lower bounds for the competition number of a graph. In this paper, we give a generalization of these two lower bounds for the competition number of a graph.     

On constructible graphs,locally Helly graphs,and convexity

A (finite or infinite) graph G is constructible if there exists a well‐ordering ≤ of its vertices such that for every vertex x which is not the smallest element, there is a vertex y < x which is adjacent to x and to every neighbor z of x with z < x. Particular constructible graphs are Helly graphs and connected bridged graphs. In this paper we study a new class of constructible graphs, the class of locally Helly graphs. A graph G is locally Helly if, for every pair (x,y) of vertices of G whose distance is d ≥ 2, there exists a vertex whose distance to x is d ? 1 and which is adjacent to y and to all neighbors of y whose distance to x is at most d. Helly graphs are locally Helly, and the converse holds for finite graphs. Among different properties we prove that a locally Helly graph is strongly dismantable, hence cop‐win, if and only if it contains no isometric rays. We show that a locally Helly graph G is finitely Helly, that is, every finite family of pairwise non‐disjoint balls of G has a non‐empty intersection. We give a sufficient condition by forbidden subgraphs so that the three concepts of Helly graphs, of locally Helly graphs and of finitely Helly graphs are equivalent. Finally, generalizing different results, in particular those of Bandelt and Chepoi 1 about Helly graphs and bridged graphs, we prove that the Helly number h(G) of the geodesic convexity in a constructible graph G is equal to its clique number ω(G), provided that ω(G) is finite. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 43: 280–298, 2003     

Witness Rectangle Graphs

In a witness rectangle graph (WRG) on vertex point set P with respect to witness point set W in the plane, two points x, y in P are adjacent whenever the open isothetic rectangle with x and y as opposite corners contains at least one point in W. WRGs are representative of a larger family of witness proximity graphs introduced in two previous papers. We study graph-theoretic properties of WRGs. We prove that any WRG has at most two non-trivial connected components. We bound the diameter of the non-trivial connected components of a WRG in both the one-component and two-component cases. In the latter case, we prove that a graph is representable as a WRG if and only if each component is a connected co-interval graph, thereby providing a complete characterization of WRGs of this type. We also completely characterize trees drawable as WRGs. In addition, we prove that a WRG with no isolated vertices has domination number at most four. Moreover, we show that any combinatorial graph can be drawn as a WRG using a combination of positive and negative witnesses. Finally, we conclude with some related results on the number of points required to stab all the rectangles defined by a set of n points.     

Note on upper bound graphs and forbidden subposets

In the upper bound graph of a poset P, the vertex set is V(P) and xy is an edge if there exists an m∈V(P) with x,y≤_Pm. We show some characterizations on split upper bound graphs, threshold upper bound graphs and difference upper bound graphs in terms of m-subposets and canonical posets.     

Sphere coverings and identifying codes

In any connected, undirected graph G = (V, E), the distance d(x, y) between two vertices x and y of G is the minimum number of edges in a path linking x to y in G. A sphere in G is a set of the form S _r (x) = {y ∈ V : d(x, y) = r}, where x is a vertex and r is a nonnegative integer called the radius of the sphere. We first address in this paper the following question: What is the minimum number of spheres with fixed radius r ≥ 0 required to cover all the vertices of a finite, connected, undirected graph G? We then turn our attention to the Hamming Hypercube of dimension n, and we show that the minimum number of spheres with any radii required to cover this graph is either n or n + 1, depending on the parity of n. We also relate the two above problems to other questions in combinatorics, in particular to identifying codes.     

Regular graphs with high edge degree

For any vertex x of a graph G let Δ(x) denote the set of vertices adjacent to x. We seek to describe the connected graphs G which are regular of valence n and in which for all adjacent vertices x and y |Δ(x) ∩ Δ(y)| = n ? 1 ? s. It is known that the complete graphs are the graphs for which s = 0. For any s, any complete many-partite graph, each part containing s + 1 vertices, is such a graph. We show that these are the only such graphs for which the valence exceeds 2s² ? s + 1. The graphs satisfying these conditions for s = 1 or 2 are characterized (up to the class of trivalent triangle-free graphs.)     

The competition number of a graph whose holes do not overlap much

Let D be an acyclic digraph. The competition graph of D is a graph which has the same vertex set as D and has an edge between u and v if and only if there exists a vertex x in D such that (u,x) and (v,x) are arcs of D. For any graph G, G together with sufficiently many isolated vertices is the competition graph of some acyclic digraph. The competition number k(G) of G is the smallest number of such isolated vertices.A hole of a graph is an induced cycle of length at least four. Kim (2005) [8] conjectured that the competition number of a graph with h holes is at most h+1. Recently, Li and Chang (2009) [11] showed that the conjecture is true when the holes are independent. In this paper, we show that the conjecture is true though the holes are not independent but mutually edge-disjoint.