Adjacent vertex distinguishing total coloring of planar graphs with maximum degree 9

Let $k$ be a positive integer. An adjacent vertex distinguishing (for short, AVD) total-$k$-coloring of a graph $G$ is a proper total-$k$-coloring of $G$ such that any two adjacent vertices have different color sets, where the color set of a vertex $v$ contains the color of $v$ and the colors of its incident edges. It was conjectured that any graph with maximum degree $\Delta$ has an AVD total-($\Delta +3$)-coloring. The conjecture was confirmed for any graph with maximum degree at most 4 and any planar graph with maximum degree at least 10. In this paper, we verify the conjecture for all planar graphs with maximum degree at least 9. Moreover, we prove that any planar graph with maximum degree at least 10 has an AVD total-($\Delta +2$)-coloring and the bound $\Delta +2$ is sharp.     

Oriented colourings of graphs with maximum degree three and four

We show that any orientation of a graph with maximum degree three has an oriented 9-colouring, and that any orientation of a graph with maximum degree four has an oriented 69-colouring. These results improve the best known upper bounds of 11 and 80, respectively.     

DP-3-coloring of some planar graphs

In this article, we use a unified approach to prove several classes of planar graphs are DP-3-colorable, which extend the corresponding results on 3-choosability.     

Domination game and minimal edge cuts

In this paper a relationship is established between the domination game and minimal edge cuts. It is proved that the game domination number of a connected graph can be bounded above in terms of the size of minimal edge cuts. In particular, if $C$ a minimum edge cut of a connected graph $G$, then ${\gamma }_g\left(G\right)\le {\gamma }_g(G?C)+2{\kappa }^{\prime }\left(G\right)$. Double-Staller graphs are introduced in order to show that this upper bound can be attained for graphs with a bridge. The obtained results are used to extend the family of known traceable graphs whose game domination numbers are at most one-half their order. Along the way two technical lemmas, which seem to be generally applicable for the study of the domination game, are proved.     

Vertex partitions of (C3,C4,C6)-free planar graphs

A graph is $(k_1,k_2)$-colorable if it admits a vertex partition into a graph with maximum degree at most $k_1$ and a graph with maximum degree at most $k_2$. We show that every $(C_3,C_4,C_6)$-free planar graph is $(0,6)$-colorable. We also show that deciding whether a $(C_3,C_4,C_6)$-free planar graph is $(0,3)$-colorable is NP-complete.     

Strengthening the Murty–Simon conjecture on diameter 2 critical graphs

A graph is diameter-2-critical if its diameter is 2 but the removal of any edge increases the diameter. A well-studied conjecture, known as the Murty–Simon conjecture, states that any diameter-2-critical graph of order $n$ has at most $?n^2∕4?$ edges, with equality if and only if $G$ is a balanced complete bipartite graph. Many partial results about this conjecture have been obtained, in particular it is known to hold for all sufficiently large graphs, for all triangle-free graphs, and for all graphs with a dominating edge. In this paper, we discuss ways in which this conjecture can be strengthened. Extending previous conjectures in this direction, we conjecture that, when we exclude the class of complete bipartite graphs and one particular graph, the maximum number of edges of a diameter-2-critical graph is at most $?{(n?1)}^2∕4?+1$. The family of extremal examples is conjectured to consist of certain twin-expansions of the 5-cycle (with the exception of a set of thirteen special small graphs). Our main result is a step towards our conjecture: we show that the Murty–Simon bound is not tight for non-bipartite diameter-2-critical graphs that have a dominating edge, as they have at most $?n^2∕4??2$ edges. Along the way, we give a shorter proof of the Murty–Simon conjecture for this class of graphs, and stronger bounds for more specific cases. We also characterize diameter-2-critical graphs of order $n$ with maximum degree $n?2$: they form an interesting family of graphs with a dominating edge and $2n?4$ edges.     

Detecting strong cliques

A strong clique in a graph is a clique intersecting every maximal independent set. We study the computational complexity of six algorithmic decision problems related to strong cliques in graphs and almost completely determine their complexity in the classes of chordal graphs, weakly chordal graphs, line graphs and their complements, and graphs of maximum degree at most three. Our results rely on connections with matchings and relate to several graph properties studied in the literature, including well-covered graphs, localizable graphs, and general partition graphs.     

The maximum multiplicity of the largest k-th eigenvalue in a matrix whose graph is acyclic or unicyclic

Given a graph $G$ we are interested in studying the symmetric matrices associated to $G$ with a fixed number of negative eigenvalues. For this class of matrices we focus on the maximum possible nullity. For trees this parameter has already been studied and plenty of applications are known. In this work we derive a formula for the maximum nullity and completely describe its behavior as a function of the number of negative eigenvalues. In addition, we also carefully describe the matrices associated with trees that attain this maximum nullity. The analysis is then extended to the more general class of unicyclic graphs. Further our work is applied to re-describing all possible partial inertias associated with trees, and is employed to study an instance of the inverse eigenvalue problem for certain trees.     

Minimum degree condition for a graph to be knitted

For a positive integer $k$, a graph is $k$-knitted if for each subset $S$ of $k$ vertices, and every partition of $S$ into (disjoint) parts $S_1,\dots ,S_t$ for some $t\ge 1$, one can find disjoint connected subgraphs $C_1,\dots ,C_t$ such that $C_i$ contains $S_i$ for each $i\in \left[t\right]?\{1,2,\dots ,t\}$. In this article, we show that if the minimum degree of an $n$-vertex graph $G$ is at least $n∕2+k∕2?1$ when $n\ge 2k+3$, then $G$ is $k$-knitted. The minimum degree is sharp. As a corollary, we obtain that $k$-contraction-critical graphs are $?\frac{k}{8}?$-connected.     

New families of graphs determined by their generalized spectrum

We construct infinite families of graphs that are determined by their generalized spectrum. This construction is based on new formulae for the determinant of the walk matrix of a graph. All graphs constructed here satisfy a certain extremal divisibility condition for the determinant of their walk matrix.     

On three color Ramsey numbers R(C4,C4,K1,n)

For $k$ given graphs $G_1,G_2,\dots ,G_k$, $k\ge 2$, the $k$-color Ramsey number, denoted by $R(G_1,G_2,\dots ,G_k)$, is the smallest integer $N$ such that if we arbitrarily color the edges of a complete graph of order $N$ with $k$ colors, then it always contains a monochromatic copy of $G_i$ colored with $i$, for some $1\le i\le k$. Let $C_m$ be a cycle of length $m$ and $K_{1,n}$ a star of order $n+1$. In this paper, firstly we give a general upper bound of $R(C_4,C_4,\dots ,C_4,K_{1,n})$. In particular, for the 3-color case, we have $R(C_4,C_4,K_{1,n})\le n+?\sqrt{4n+5}?+3$ and this bound is tight in some sense. Furthermore, we prove that $R(C_4,C_4,K_{1,n})\le n+?\sqrt{4n+5}?+2$ for all $n={?}^2??$ and $?\ge 2$, and if $?$ is a prime power, then the equality holds.     

Nowhere-zero 3-flow of graphs with small independence number

Tutte’s $3$-flow conjecture states that every $4$-edge-connected graph admits a nowhere-zero $3$-flow. In this paper, we characterize all graphs with independence number at most $4$ that admit a nowhere-zero $3$-flow. The characterization of $3$-flow verifies Tutte’s $3$-flow conjecture for graphs with independence number at most $4$ and with order at least $21$. In addition, we prove that every odd-$5$-edge-connected graph with independence number at most $3$ admits a nowhere-zero $3$-flow. To obtain these results, we introduce a new reduction method to handle odd wheels.     

Weight enumerators of reducible cyclic codes and their dual codes

Let ${\mathbb{F}}_q$ be a finite field and $n$ a positive integer. In this paper, we find a new combinatorial method to determine weight enumerators of reducible cyclic codes and their dual codes of length $n$ over ${\mathbb{F}}_q$, which just generalize results of Zhu et al. (2015); especially, we also give the weight enumerator of a cyclic code, which is viewed as a partial Melas code. Furthermore, weight enumerators obtained in this paper are all in the form of power of a polynomial.     

Asymptotic expansion for vector-valued sequences of random variables with focus on Wiener chaos

We develop the asymptotic expansion theory for vector-valued sequences ${\left(F_N\right)}_{N\ge 1}$ of random variables in terms of the convergence of the Stein–Malliavin matrix associated with the sequence $F_N$. Our approach combines the classical Fourier approach and the recent Stein–Malliavin theory. We find the second order term of the asymptotic expansion of the density of $F_N$ and we illustrate our results by several examples.     

New lower bounds on the radius of spatial analyticity for the KdV equation

The radius of spatial analyticity for solutions of the KdV equation is studied. It is shown that the analyticity radius does not decay faster than $t^{?1/4}$ as time t goes to infinity. This improves the works of Selberg and da Silva (2017) [30] and Tesfahun (2017) [34]. Our strategy mainly relies on a higher order almost conservation law in Gevrey spaces, which is inspired by the I-method.     

Limit theorems for functionals of two independent Gaussian processes

Under certain mild conditions, some limit theorems for functionals of two independent Gaussian processes are obtained. The results apply to general Gaussian processes including fractional Brownian motion, sub-fractional Brownian motion and bi-fractional Brownian motion. A new and interesting phenomenon is that, in comparison with the results for fractional Brownian motion, extra randomness appears in the limiting distributions for Gaussian processes with nonstationary increments, say sub-fractional Brownian motion and bi-fractional Brownian. The results are obtained based on the method of moments, in which Fourier analysis, the chaining argument introduced in [11] and a pairing technique are employed.