In this survey of graph polynomials, we emphasize the Tutte polynomial and a selection of closely related graph polynomials. We explore some of the Tutte polynomial's many properties and applications and we use the Tutte polynomial to showcase a variety of principles and techniques for graph polynomials in general. These include several ways in which a graph polynomial may be defined and methods for extracting combinatorial information and algebraic properties from a graph polynomial. We also use the Tutte polynomial to demonstrate how graph polynomials may be both specialized and generalized, and how they can encode information relevant to physical applications. We conclude with a brief discussion of computational complexity considerations.
We transform Tutte-Grothedieck invariants thus also Tutte polynomials on matroids so that the contraction-deletion rule for loops (isthmuses) coincides with the general case.
In this paper, we introduce the concept of the Tutte polynomials of genus $g$ and discuss some of its properties. We note that the Tutte polynomials of genus one are well-known Tutte polynomials. The Tutte polynomials are matroid invariants, and we claim that the Tutte polynomials of genus $g$ are also matroid invariants. The main result of this paper and the forthcoming paper declares that the Tutte polynomials of genus $g$ are complete matroid invariants.
We show that in an ordered matroid the partial derivative \partial^{p+q}t/\partialx^p\partialyq of the Tutte polynomial is p!q! times the generating function of activities of subsets with corank p and nullity q. More generally, this property holds for the 3-variable Tutte polynomial of a matroid perspective.
By considering Tutte polynomials of Hopf algebras, we show how a Tutte polynomial can be canonically associated with combinatorial objects that have some notions of deletion and contraction. We show that several graph polynomials from the literature arise from this framework. These polynomials include the classical Tutte polynomial of graphs and matroids, Las Vergnas' Tutte polynomial of the morphism of matroids and his Tutte polynomial for embedded graphs, Bollobas and Riordan's ribbon graph polynomial, the Krushkal polynomial, and the Penrose polynomial. We show that our Tutte polynomials of…
We study the computation of the Tutte polynomials of fan-like graphs and obtain expressions of their Tutte polynomials via generating functions. As applications, Tutte polynomials, in particular, the number of spanning trees, of two kinds of benzenoid systems, i.e. pyrene chains and triphenylene chains, are obtained.
We prove that the Ehrhart polynomial of a zonotope is a specialization of the multiplicity Tutte polynomial. We derive some formulae for the volume and the number of integer points of the zonotope.
We follow the example of Tutte in his construction of the dichromate of a graph (that is, the Tutte polynomial) as a unification of the chromatic polynomial and the flow polynomial in order to construct a new polynomial invariant of maps (graphs embedded in orientable surfaces). We call this the surface Tutte polynomial. The surface Tutte polynomial of a map contains the Las Vergnas polynomial, Bollobás-Riordan polynomial and Kruskhal polynomial as specializations. By construction, the surface Tutte polynomial includes among its evaluations the number of local tensions and local flows taking v…
This article computes the Tutte polynomial of the hyperplane arrangements associated to the complex reflection groups. The calculations are based on both formulas of De Concini and Procesi for Tutte polynomial and the normaliser of parabolic subgroups in complex reflection groups determined by Krishnasamy and Taylor.
A celebrated result of F. Jaeger states that the Tutte polynomial of a planar graph is determined by the HOMFLY polynomial of an associated link. Here we are interested in the converse of this result. We consider the question `to what extent does the Tutte polynomial determine the HOMFLY polynomial of any knot?' We show that the HOMFLY polynomial of a knot is determined by Tutte polynomials of plane graphs associated to the knot.
We establish a relation between the Bollobas-Riordan polynomial of a ribbon graph with the relative Tutte polynomial of a plane graph obtained from the ribbon graph using its projection to the plane in a nontrivial way. Also we give a duality formula for the relative Tutte polynomial of dual plane graphs and an expression of the Kauffman bracket of a virtual link as a specialization of the relative Tutte polynomial.
The Tutte polynomial is a well-studied invariant of graphs and matroids. We first extend the Tutte polynomial from graphs to hypergraphs, and more generally from matroids to polymatroids, as a two-variable polynomial. Our definition is related to previous works of Cameron and Fink and of Kálmán and Postnikov. We then define the universal Tutte polynomial $\T_n$, which is a polynomial of degree $n$ in $2+(2^n-1)$ variables that specializes to the Tutte polynomials of all polymatroids (hence all matroids) on a ground set with $n$ elements. The universal polynomial $\T_n$ admits three kinds of sy…
The Tutte polynomial is originally a bivariate polynomial which enumerates the colorings of a graph and of its dual graph. Ardila extended in 2007 the definition of the Tutte polynomial on the real hyperplane arrangements. He particularly computed the Tutte polynomials of the hyperplane arrangements associated to the classical Weyl groups. Those associated to the exceptional Weyl groups were computed by De Concini and Procesi one year later. This article has two objectives: On one side, we extend the Tutte polynomial computing to the complex hyperplane arrangements. On the other side, we intro…
Many combinatorial and topological invariants of a hyperplane arrangement can be computed in terms of its Tutte polynomial. Similarly, many invariants of a hypertoric arrangement can be computed in terms of its arithmetic Tutte polynomial. We compute the arithmetic Tutte polynomials of the classical root systems of types A,B,C, and D, with respect to their integer, root, and weight lattices. We do it in two ways: by introducing a finite field method for arithmetic Tutte polynomials, and by enumerating signed graphs with respect to six parameters.
We introduce the notions of arithmetic colorings and arithmetic flows over a graph with labelled edges, which generalize the notions of colorings and flows over a graph. We show that the corresponding arithmetic chromatic polynomial and arithmetic flow polynomial are given by suitable specializations of the associated arithmetic Tutte polynomial, generalizing classical results of Tutte.
The Tutte polynomial of a graph is a two-variable polynomial whose zeros and evaluations encode many interesting properties of the graph. In this article we investigate the zeros of the Tutte polynomials of graphs, and show that they form a dense subset of certain regions of the plane. This is the first density result for the zeros of the Tutte polynomial in a region of positive volume. Our result almost confirms a conjecture of Jackson and Sokal except for one region which is related to an open problem on flow polynomials.
Originally in 1954 the Tutte polynomial was a bivariate polynomial associated to a graph in order to enumerate the colorings of this graph and of its dual graph at the same time. However the Tutte polynomial reveals more of the internal structure of a graph, and contains even other specializations from other sciences like the Jones polynomial in Knot theory, the partition function of the Pott model in statistical physics, and the reliability polynomial in network theory. In this article, we study the Tutte polynomial associated to more general objects which are the arrangements of hyperplanes.…
We define and study the Tutte polynomial of a hyperplane arrangement. We introduce a method for computing it by solving an enumerative problem in a finite field. For specific arrangements, the computation of Tutte polynomials is then reduced to certain related enumerative questions. As a consequence, we obtain new formulas for the generating functions enumerating alternating trees, labelled trees, semiorders and Dyck paths.
The Tutte polynomial is a fundamental invariant of graphs. In this article, we define and study a generalization of the Tutte polynomial for directed graphs, that we name B-polynomial. The B-polynomial has three variables, but when specialized to the case of graphs (that is, digraphs where arcs come in pairs with opposite directions), one of the variables becomes redundant and the B-polynomial is equivalent to the Tutte polynomial. We explore various properties, expansions, specializations, and generalizations of the B-polynomial, and try to answer the following questions: 1. what properties o…
The Tutte polynomial for matroids is not directly applicable to polymatroids. For instance, deletion-contraction properties do not hold. We construct a polynomial for polymatroids which behaves similarly to the Tutte polynomial of a matroid, and in fact contains the same information as the Tutte polynomial when we restrict to matroids. This polynomial is constructed using lattice point counts in the Minkowski sum of the base polytope of a polymatroid and scaled copies of the standard simplex. We also show that, in the matroid case, our polynomial has coefficients of alternating sign, with a co…
The Tutte polynomial is a fundamental invariant associated to a graph, matroid, vector arrangement, or hyperplane arrangement. This short survey focuses on some of the most important results on Tutte polynomials of hyperplane arrangements. We show that many enumerative, algebraic, geometric, and topological invariants of a hyperplane arrangement can be expressed in terms of its Tutte polynomial. We also show that, even if one is only interested in computing the Tutte polynomial of a graph or a matroid, the theory of hyperplane arrangements provides a powerful finite field method for this compu…
Brylawski proved the coefficients of the Tutte polynomial of a matroid satisfy a set of linear relations. We extend these relations to a generalization of the Tutte polynomial that includes greedoids and antimatroids. This leads to families of new identities for antimatroids, including trees, posets, chordal graphs and finite point sets in $\mathbb{R}^n$. It also gives a "new" linear relation for matroids that is implied by Brylawski's identities.
This paper is based on a series of talks given at the Patejdlovka Enumeration Workshop held in the Czech Republic in November 2007. The topics covered are as follows. The graph polynomial, Tutte-Grothendieck invariants, an overview of relevant elementary finite Fourier analysis, the Tutte polynomial of a graph as a Hamming weight enumerator of its set of tensions (or flows), and a description of a family of polynomials containing the graph polynomial which yield Tutte-Grothendieck invariants in a similar way.
The Tutte polynomial is a well-studied invariant of matroids. The polymatroid Tutte polynomial $\mathcal{J}_{P}(x,y)$, introduced by Bernardi et al., is an extension of the classical Tutte polynomial from matroids to polymatroids $P$. In this paper, we first prove that $\mathcal{J}_{P}(x,t)$ and $\mathcal{J}_{P}(t,y)$ are interpolating for any fixed real number $t\geq 1$, and then we study the coefficients of high-order terms in $\mathcal{J}_{P}(x,1)$ and $\mathcal{J}_{P}(1,y)$. These results generalize results on interior and exterior polynomials of hypergraphs.
We define and study "semimatroids", a class of objects which abstracts the dependence properties of an affine hyperplane arrangement. We show that geometric semilattices are precisely the posets of flats of semimatroids. We define and investigate the Tutte polynomial of a semimatroid. We prove that it is the universal Tutte-Grothendieck invariant for semimatroids, and we give a combinatorial interpretation for its non-negative coefficients.
This is a chapter destined for the book "Handbook of the Tutte Polynomial". The chapter is a composite. The first part is a brief introduction to Orlik-Solomon algebras. The second part sketches the theory of evaluative functions on matroid base polytopes and in particular, the G-invariant (as the subject is known late 2015). A third very short section is on Hopf-algebra or coalgebra structures in Tutte polynomial theory.
We give a general multiplication-convolution identity for the multivariate and bivariate rank generating polynomial of a matroid. The bivariate rank generating polynomial is transformable to and from the Tutte polynomial by simple algebraic operations. Several identities, almost all already known in some form, are specializations of this identity. Combinatorial or probabilistic interpretations are given for the specialized identities.
Let G be a graph with adjacency matrix A(G). Consider the matrix IA(G)=(I | A(G)), where I is the identity matrix, and let M(IA(G)) be the binary matroid represented by IA(G). Then suitably parametrized versions of the Tutte polynomial of M(IA(G)) yield the interlace polynomials of G, introduced by Arratia, Bollobás and Sorkin [J. Combin. Theory Ser. B 92 (2004) 199-233; Combinatorica 24 (2004) 567-584]. Interlace polynomials subsequently introduced by other authors may be obtained from parametrized Tutte polynomials of the binary matroid represented by (I | A(G) | I+A(G)).
In the literature can be found several descriptions of the Tutte polynomial of graphs. Tutte defined it thanks to a notion of activity based on an ordering of the edges. Thereafter, Bernardi gave a non-equivalent notion of the activity where the graph is embedded in a surface. In this paper, we see that other notions of activity can thus be imagined and they can all be embodied in a same notion, the $Δ$-activity. We develop a short theory which sheds light on the connections between the different expressions of the Tutte polynomial.
We construct a new polynomial invariant of maps (graphs embedded in a compact surface, orientable or non-orientable), which contains as specializations the Krushkal polynomial, the Bollobás--Riordan polynomial, the Las Vergnas polynomial, and their extensions to non-orientable surfaces, and hence in particular the Tutte polynomial. Other evaluations include the number of local flows and local tensions taking non-identity values in a given finite group.
We recover the Tutte polynomial of a matroid, up to change of coordinates, from an Ehrhart-style polynomial counting lattice points in the Minkowski sum of its base polytope and scalings of simplices. Our polynomial has coefficients of alternating sign with a combinatorial interpretation closely tied to the Dawson partition. Our definition extends in a straightforward way to polymatroids, and in this setting our polynomial has Kálmán's internal and external activity polynomials as its univariate specialisations.
We introduce the notion of an arithmetic matroid, whose main example is given by a list of elements of a finitely generated abelian group. In particular we study the representability of its dual, providing an extension of the Gale duality to this setting. Guided by the geometry of generalized toric arrangements, we provide a combinatorial interpretation of the associated arithmetic Tutte polynomial, which can be seen as a generalization of Crapo's formula for the classical Tutte polynomial.
The tensor product $(G_1,G_2)$ of a graph $G_1$ and a pointed graph $G_2$ (containing one distinguished edge) is obtained by identifying each edge of $G_1$ with the distinguished edge of a separate copy of $G_2$, and then removing the identified edges. A formula to compute the Tutte polynomial of a tensor product of graphs was originally given by Brylawski. This formula was recently generalized to colored graphs and the generalized Tutte polynomial introduced by Bollobás and Riordan. In this paper we generalize the colored tensor product formula to relative Tutte polynomials of relative graphs…
Specializing the $γ$-basis for the vector space $\mathcal{G}(n,r)$ spanned by the set of symbols on bit sequences with $r$ $1$'s and $n-r$ $0$'s, we obtain a frame or spanning set for the vector space $\mathcal{T}(n,r)$ spanned by Tutte polynomials of matroids having rank $r$ and size $n$. Every Tutte polynomial can be expanded as a linear combination with non-negative integer coefficients of elements in this frame. We give explicit formulas for the elements in this frame. These formulas combine to give an expansion of the Tutte polynomial with coefficients obtained by summing numerical invari…
In this paper, we find recursive formulas for the Tutte polynomial of a family of small-world networks: Farey graphs, which are modular and have an exponential degree hierarchy. Then, making use of these formulas, we determine the number of spanning trees, as well as the number of connected spanning subgraphs. Furthermore, we also derive exact expressions for the chromatic polynomial and the reliability polynomial of these graphs.
We show how the Tutte polynomial of a matroid $M$ can be computed from its condensed configuration, which is a statistic of its lattice of cyclic flats. The results imply that the Tutte polynomial of $M$ is already determined by the abstract lattice of its cyclic flats together with their cardinalities and ranks. They furthermore generalize a similiar statement for perfect matroid designs due to Mphako and help to understand families of matroids with identical Tutte polynomial as constructed by Ken Shoda.
Let $G$ be a connected graph with vertex set $\{0,1,2,...,n\}$. We allow $G$ to have multiple edges and loops. In this paper, we give a characterization of external activity by some parameters of $G$-parking functions. In particular, we give the definition of the bridge vertex of a $G$-parking function and obtain an expression of the Tutte polynomial $T_G(x,y)$ of $G$ in terms of $G$-parking functions. We find the Tutte polynomial enumerates the $G$-parking function by the number of the bridge vertices.
The Tutte polynomial is originally a bivariate polynomial enumerating the colorings of a graph and of its dual graph. But it reveals more of the internal structure of the graph like its number of forests, of spanning subgraphs, and of acyclic orientations. In 2007, Ardila extended the notion of Tutte polynomial to the hyperplane arrangements, and computed the Tutte polynomials of the classical root systems for a certain prime power of the first variable. In this article, we compute Tutte polynomials of ideal arrangements. Those arrangements were introduced in 2006 by Sommers and Tymoczko, and …
We give a new characterization of the Tutte polynomial of graphs. Our characterization is formally close (but inequivalent) to the original definition given by Tutte as the generating function of spanning trees counted according to activities. Tutte's notion of activity requires to choose a \emph{linear order} on the edge set (though the generating function of the activities is, in fact, independent of this order). We define a new notion of activity, the embedding-activity, which requires to choose a \emph{combinatorial embedding} of the graph, that is, a cyclic order of the edges around each …
We introduce the ``trivariate Tutte polynomial" of a signed graph as an invariant of signed graphs up to vertex switching that contains among its evaluations the number of proper colorings and the number of nowhere-zero flows. In this, it parallels the Tutte polynomial of a graph, which contains the chromatic polynomial and flow polynomial as specializations. The number of nowhere-zero tensions (for signed graphs they are not simply related to proper colorings as they are for graphs) is given in terms of evaluations of the trivariate Tutte polynomial at two distinct points. Interestingly, the …
In [A polynomial invariant of graphs on orientable surfaces, Proc. Lond. Math. Soc., III Ser. 83, No. 3, 513-531 (2001)] and [A polynomial of graphs on surfaces, Math. Ann. 323, 81-96 (2002)], Bollobas and Riordan generalized the classical Tutte polynomial to graphs cellularly embedded in surfaces, i.e. ribbon graphs, thus encoding topological information not captured by the classical Tutte polynomial. We provide a `recipe theorem' for their new topological Tutte polynomial, R(G). We then relate R(G) to the generalized transition polynomial Q(G) via a medial graph construction, thus extending …
In this note we generalize the convolution formula for the Tutte polynomial of Kook-Reiner-Stanton and Etienne-Las Vergnas to a more general setting that includes both arithmetic matroids and delta-matroids. As corollaries, we obtain new proofs of two positivity results for pseudo-arithmetic matroids and a combinatorial interpretation of the arithmetic Tutte polynomial at infinitely many points in terms of arithmetic flows and colorings. We also exhibit connections with a decomposition of Dahmen-Micchelli spaces and lattice point counting in zonotopes.
The Tutte polynomial of a graph or a matroid, named after W. T. Tutte, has the important universal property that essentially any multiplicative graph or network invariant with a deletion and contraction reduction must be an evaluation of it. The deletion and contraction operations are natural reductions for many network models arising from a wide range of problems at the heart of computer science, engineering, optimization, physics, and biology. Even though the invariant is #P-hard to compute in general, there are many occasions when we face the task of computing the Tutte polynomial for some …
We show that the 4-variable generating function of certain orientation related parameters of an ordered oriented matroid is the evaluation at (x + u, y+v) of its Tutte polynomial. This evaluation contains as special cases the counting of regions in hyperplane arrangements and of acyclic orientations in graphs. Several new 2-variable expansions of the Tutte polynomial of an oriented matroid follow as corollaries. This result hold more generally for oriented matroid perspectives, with specific special cases the counting of bounded regions in hyperplane arrangements or of bipolar acyclic orientat…
Unlike Whitney's definition of the corank-nullity generating function $T(G;x+1,y+1)$, Tutte's definition of his now eponymous polynomial $T(G;x,y)$ requires a total order on the edges of which the polynomial is a posteriori independent. Tutte presented his definition in terms of internal and external activities of maximal spanning forests. Although Tutte's original definition may appear somewhat ad hoc upon first inspection, subsequent work by various researchers has demonstrated that activity is a deep combinatorial concept. In this survey, we provide an introduction to activities for graphs …
We study the Tutte polynomial of two infinite families of finite graphs: the Sierpiński graphs, which are finite approximations of the well-known Sierpiński gasket, and the Schreier graphs of the Hanoi Towers group $H^{(3)}$ acting on the rooted ternary tree. For both of them, we recursively describe the Tutte polynomial and we compute several special evaluations of it, giving interesting results about the combinatorial structure of these graphs.
