Godsil observed the simple fact that the multiplicity of 0 as a root of the matching polynomial of a graph coincides with the classical notion of deficiency. From this fact he asked to what extent classical results in matching theory generalize, replacing "deficiency" with multiplicity of $θ$ as a root of the matching polynomial. We prove an analogue of the Stability Lemma for any given root, which describes how the matching structure of a graph changes upon deletion of a single vertex. An analogue of Gallai's Lemma follows. Together these two results imply an analogue of the Gallai-Edmonds Structure Theorem. Consequently, the matching polynomial of a vertex transitive graph has simple roots.
In this paper, we prove the Gallai-Edmonds structure theorem for the most general matching polynomial. Our result implies the Parter-Wiener theorem and its recent generalization about the existence of principal submatrices of a Hermitian matrix whose graph is a tree. keywords:
We prove that the matching measure of an infinite vertex-transitive connected graph has no atoms. Generalizing the results of Salez, we show that for an ergodic non-amenable unimodular random rooted graph with uniformly bounded degrees, the matching measure has only finitely many atoms. Ku and Chen proved the analogue of the Gallai-Edmonds structure theorem for non-zero roots of the matching polynomial for finite graphs. We extend their results for infinite graphs. We also show that the corresponding Gallai-Edmonds decomposition is compatible with the zero temperature monomer-dimer model.
We give a new proof of König's theorem and generalize the Gallai-Edmonds decomposition to balanced hypergraphs in two different ways. Based on our decompositions we give two new characterizations of balanced hypergraphs and show some properties of matchings and vertex cover in balanced hypergraphs.
Let $r\geq 3$ be an integer and $G$ be a graph. Let $δ(G), Δ(G)$, $α(G)$ and $μ(G)$ denotes minimum degree, maximum degree, independence number and matching number of $G$, respectively. Recently, Caro, Davila and Pepper proved $δ(G)α(G)\leq Δ(G)μ(G)$. Mohr and Rautenbach characterized the extremal graphs for non-regular graphs and 3-regular graphs. In this note, we characterize the extremal graphs for all $r$-regular graphs in term of Gallai-Edmonds Structure Theorem, which extends Mohr and Rautenbach's result.
For a graph $G$ with $n$ vertices, let $ν(G)$ and $A(G)$ denote the matching number and adjacency matrix of $G$, respectively. The permanental polynomial of $G$ is defined as $π(G,x)={\rm per}(Ix-A(G))$. The permanental nullity of $G$, denoted by $η_{per}(G)$, is the multiplicity of the zero root of $π(G,x)$. In this paper, we use the Gallai-Edmonds structure theorem to derive a concise formula which reveals the relationship between the permanental nullity and the matching number of a graph. Furthermore, we prove a necessary and sufficient condition for a graph $G$ to have $η_{per}(G)=0$. As a…
A graph $G$ with a perfect matching is called saturated if $G+e$ has more perfect matchings than $G$ for any edge $e$ that is not in $G$. Lovász gave a characterization of the saturated graphs called the cathedral theorem, with some applications to the enumeration problem of perfect matchings, and later Szigeti gave another proof. In this paper, we give a new proof with our preceding works which revealed canonical structures of general graphs with perfect matchings. Here, the cathedral theorem is derived in quite a natural way, providing more refined or generalized properties. Moreover, the ne…
For a given graph $H$ and $n\geq 1$, let $f(n,H)$ denote the maximum number $c$ for which there is a way to color the edges of the complete graph $K_n$ with $c$ colors such that every subgraph $H$ of $K_n$ has at least two edges of the same color. Equivalently, any edge-coloring of $K_n$ with at least $rb(n,H)=f(n,H)+1$ colors contains a rainbow copy of $H$, where a rainbow subgraph of an edge-colored graph is such that no two edges of it have the same color. The number $rb(n,H)$ is called the {\it rainbow number of $H$}. Erdős, Simonovits and Sós showed that $rb(n,K_3)=n$. In 2004, Schiermeye…
In matching theory, one of the most fundamental and classical branches of combinatorics, {\em canonical decompositions} of graphs are powerful and versatile tools that form the basis of this theory. However, the abilities of the known canonical decompositions, that is, the {\em Dulmage-Mendelsohn}, {\em Kotzig-Lovász}, and {\em Gallai-Edmonds} decompositions, are limited because they are only applicable to particular classes of graphs, such as bipartite graphs, or they are too sparse to provide sufficient information. To overcome these limitations, we introduce a new canonical decomposition th…
The first part of the paper studies star-cycle factors of graphs. It characterizes star-cycle factors of a graph $G$ and proves upper bounds for the minimum number of $K_{1,2}$-components in a $\{K_{1,1}, K_{1,2}, C_n\colon n\ge 3\}$-factor of a graph $G$. Furthermore, it shows where these components are located with respect to the Gallai-Edmonds decomposition of $G$ and it characterizes the edges which are not contained in any $\{K_{1,1}, K_{1,2}, C_n\colon n\ge 3\}$-factor of $G$. The second part of the paper proves that every edge-chromatic critical graph $G$ has a $\{K_{1,1}, K_{1,2}, C_n\…
A \emph{2-matching} in an undirected graph $G = (VG, EG)$ is a function $f \colon EG \to \set{0,1,2}$ such that for each node $v \in VG$ the sum of values $f(e)$ on all edges $e$ incident to $v$ does not exceed~2. The \emph{size} of $f$ is the sum $\sum_e f(e)$. If $\set{e \in EG \mid f(e) \ne 0}$ contains no triangles then $f$ is called \emph{triangle-free}. Cornuéjols and Pulleyblank devised a combinatorial $O(mn)$-algorithm that finds a triangle free 2-matching of maximum size (hereinafter $n := \abs{VG}$, $m := \abs{EG}$) and also established a min-max theorem. We claim that this approach …
Given simple graphs $H_{1},H_{2},\ldots,H_{c}$, the Ramsey number $r(H_{1},H_{2},\ldots,H_{c})$ is the smallest positive integer $n$ such that every edge-colored $K_{n}$ with $c$ colors contains a subgraph in color $i$ isomorphic to $H_{i}$ for some $i\in\{1,2,\ldots,c\}$. The critical graphs for $r(H_1,H_2,\ldots,H_c)$ are edge-colored complete graphs on $r(H_1,H_2,\ldots,H_c)-1$ vertices with $c$ colors which contain no subgraphs in color $i$ isomorphic to $H_{i}$ for any $i\in \{1,2,\ldots,c\}$. For $n_1\geq n_2\geq \ldots\geq n_c\geq 1$, Cockayne and Lorimer (The Ramsey number for stripes,…
Let $G$ be a finite simple graph. For $X \subset V(G)$, the difference of $X$, $d(X) := |X| - |N (X)|$ where $N(X)$ is the neighborhood of $X$ and $\max \, \{d(X):X\subset V(G)\}$ is called the critical difference of $G$. $X$ is called a critical set if $d(X)$ equals the critical difference and ker$(G)$ is the intersection of all critical sets. It is known that ker$(G)$ is an independent (vertex) set of $G$. diadem$(G)$ is the union of all critical independent sets. An independent set $S$ is an inclusion minimal set with $d(S) > 0$ if no proper subset of $S$ has positive difference. A graph $G…
