A graph G is t-tough if any induced subgraph of it with x > 1 connected components is obtained from G by deleting at least tx vertices. Chvatal conjectured that there exists an absolute constant t_0 so that every t_0-tough graph is pancyclic. This conjecture was disproved by Bauer, van den Heuvel and Schmeichel by constructing a t_0-tough triangle-free graph for every real t_0. For each finite field F_q with q odd, we consider graphs associated to the finite Euclidean plane and the finite upper half plane over F_q. These graphs have received serious attention as they have been shown to be Ramanujan (or asymptotically Ramanujan) for large q. We will show that for infinitely many q, these graphs provide further counterexamples to Chvatal's conjecture. They also provide a good constructive lower bound for the Ramsey number R(3,k).
We study the Erdos distance problem over finite Euclidean and non-Euclidean spaces. Our main tools are graphs associated to finite Euclidean and non-Euclidean spaces that are considered in Bannai-Shimabukuro-Tanaka (2004, 2007). These graphs are shown to be asymptotically Ramanujan graphs. The advantage of using these graphs is twofold. First, we can derive new lower bounds on the Erdos distance problems with explicit constants. Second, we can construct many explicit tough Ramsey graphs R(3,k).
A graph $G$ is minimally $t$-tough if the toughness of $G$ is $t$ and the deletion of any edge from $G$ decreases the toughness. Kriesell conjectured that for every minimally $1$-tough graph the minimum degree $δ(G)=2$. We show that in every minimally $1$-tough graph $δ(G)\le\frac{n+2}{3}$. We also prove that every minimally $1$-tough claw-free graph is a cycle. On the other hand, we show that for every $t \in \mathbb{Q}$ any graph can be embedded as an induced subgraph into a minimally $t$-tough graph.
A graph $ G $ is minimally $ t $-tough if the toughness of $ G $ is $ t $ and deletion of any edge from $ G $ decreases its toughness. Katona et al. conjectured that the minimum degree of any minimally $ t $-tough graph is $ \lceil 2t\rceil $ and gave some upper bounds on the minimum degree of the minimally $ t $-tough graphs in \cite{Katona, Gyula}. In this paper, we show that a minimally 1-tough graph $ G $ with girth $ g\geq 5 $ has minimum degree at most $ \lfloor\frac{n}{g+1}\rfloor+g-1$, and a minimally $ 1 $-tough graph with girth $ 4 $ has minimum degree at most $ \frac{n+6}{4}$. We al…
Chen et al. proved that every 18-tough chordal graph has a Hamilton cycle [Networks 31 (1998), 29-38]. Improving upon their bound, we show that every 10-tough chordal graph is Hamiltonian (in fact, Hamilton-connected). We use Aharoni and Haxell's hypergraph extension of Hall's Theorem as our main tool.
The toughness of a noncomplete graph $G$ is the maximum real number $t$ such that the ratio of $|S|$ to the number of components of $G-S$ is at least $t$ for every cutset $S$ of $G$, and the toughness of a complete graph is defined to be $\infty$. Determining the toughness for a given graph is NP-hard. Chvátal's toughness conjecture, stating that there exists a constant $t_0$ such that every graph with toughness at least $t_0$ is hamiltonian, is still open for general graphs. A graph is called $(P_3\cup 2P_1)$-free if it does not contain any induced subgraph isomorphic to $P_3\cup 2P_1$, the d…
A graph is called $2K_2$-free if it does not contain two independent edges as an induced subgraph. Broersma, Patel, and Pyatkin showed that every 25-tough $2K_2$-free graph with at least three vertices is hamiltonian. In this paper, we improve the required toughness in this result from 25 to 3.
For a given graph $R$, a graph $G$ is $R$-free if $G$ does not contain $R$ as an induced subgraph. It is known that every $2$-tough graph with at least three vertices has a $2$-factor. In graphs with restricted structures, it was shown that every $2K_2$-free $3/2$-tough graph with at least three vertices has a $2$-factor, and the toughness bound $3/2$ is best possible. In viewing $2K_2$, the disjoint union of two edges, as a linear forest, in this paper, for any linear forest $R$ on 5, 6, or 7 vertices, we find the sharp toughness bound $t$ such that every $t$-tough $R$-free graph on at least …
A graph $G$ is $H$-free if it has no induced subgraph isomorphic to $H$, where $H$ is a graph. In this paper, we show that every $\frac{3}{2}$-tough $(P_4 \cup P_{10})$-free graph has a 2-factor. The toughness condition of this result is sharp. Moreover, for any $\varepsilon>0$ there exists a $(2-\varepsilon)$-tough $2P_5$-free graph without a 2-factor. This implies that the graph $P_4 \cup P_{10}$ is best possible for a forbidden subgraph in a sense.
It is proved that if $G$ is a $t$-tough graph of order $n$ and minimum degree $δ$ with $t>1$ then either $G$ has a cycle of length at least $\min\{n,2δ+5\}$ or $G$ is the Petersen graph.
Let $G$ be a $t$-tough graph of order $n$ and minimum degree $δ$ with $t>1$. It is proved that if $δ\ge(n-2)/3$ then each longest cycle in $G$ is a dominating cycle.
Let $t>0$ be a real number and $G$ be a graph. We say $G$ is $t$-tough if for every cutset $S$ of $G$, the ratio of $|S|$ to the number of components of $G-S$ is at least $t$. Determining toughness is an NP-hard problem for arbitrary graphs. The Toughness Conjecture of Chvátal, stating that there exists a constant $t_0$ such that every $t_0$-tough graph with at least three vertices is hamiltonian, is still open in general. A graph is called $(P_2\cup P_3)$-free if it does not contain any induced subgraph isomorphic to $P_2\cup P_3$, the union of two vertex-disjoint paths of order 2 and 3, resp…
The study of the existence of hamiltonian cycles in a graph is a classic problem in graph theory. By incorporating toughness and spectral conditions, we can consider Chvátal's conjecture from another perspective: what is the spectral condition to guarantee the existence of a hamiltonian cycle among $t$-tough graphs? We first give the answer to $1$-tough graphs, i.e. if $ρ(G)\geqρ(M_{n})$, then $G$ contains a hamiltonian cycle, unless $G\cong M_{n}$, where $M_{n}=K_{1}\nabla K_{n-4}^{+3}$ and $K_{n-4}^{+3}$ is the graph obtained from $3K_{1}\cup K_{n-4}$ by adding three independent edges betwee…
It is proved that if $G$ is a $t$-tough graph of order $n$ and minimum degree $δ$ with $t>1$ then either $G$ has a cycle of length at least $\min\{n,2δ+4\}$ or $G$ is the Petersen graph.
We prove: (i) if $G$ is a 1-tough graph of order $n$ and minimum degree $δ$ with $δ\ge(n-2)/3$ then each longest cycle in $G$ is a dominating cycle unless $G$ belongs to an easily specified class of graphs with $κ(G)=2$ and $τ(G)=1$. The second result follows immediately from the first result: (ii) if $G$ is a 3-connected 1-tough graph with $δ\ge(n-2)/3$ then each longest cycle in $G$ is a dominating cycle.
Studying the shortness of longest cycles in maximal planar graphs, we improve the upper bound on the shortness exponent of the class of $\frac{5}{4}$-tough maximal planar graphs presented by Harant and Owens [Discrete Math. 147 (1995), 301--305]. In addition, we present two generalizations of a similar result of Tkáč who considered $1$-tough maximal planar graphs [Discrete Math. 154 (1996), 321--328]; we remark that one of these generalizations gives a tight upper bound. We fix a problematic argument used in the first paper.
Let $k \geq 2$ be an integer. We say that a graph $G$ is $(K_2 \cup kK_1)$-free if it does not contain $K_2 \cup kK_1$ as an induced subgraph. Recently, Shi and Shan conjectured that every $1$-tough and $2k$-connected $(K_2 \cup kK_1)$-free graph is hamiltonian. In this paper, we solve this conjecture by proving the statement; every $1$-tough and $k$-connected $(K_2 \cup kK_1)$-free graph with minimum degree at least $\frac{3(k-1)}{2}$ is hamiltonian or the Petersen graph.
Given a graph $H$, a graph $G$ is $H$-free if $G$ does not contain $H$ as an induced subgraph. For a positive real number $t$, a non-complete graph $G$ is said to be $t$-tough if for every vertex cut $S$ of $G$, the ratio of $|S|$ to the number of components of $G-S$ is at least $t$. A complete graph is said to be $t$-tough for any $t>0$. Chvátal's toughness conjecture, stating that there exists a constant $t_0$ such that every $t_0$-tough graph with at least three vertices is Hamiltonian, is still open in general. Chvátal and Erdös \cite{CE} proved that, for any integer $k\ge 1$, every $\max\…
Chvátal conjectured in 1973 the existence of some constant $t$ such that all $t$-tough graphs with at least three vertices are hamiltonian. While the conjecture has been proven for some special classes of graphs, it remains open in general. We say that a graph is $(K_2 \cup 3K_1)$-free if it contains no induced subgraph isomorphic to $K_2 \cup 3K_1$, where $K_2 \cup 3K_1$ is the disjoint union of an edge and three isolated vertices. In this paper, we show that every 3-tough $(K_2 \cup 3K_1)$-free graph with at least three vertices is hamiltonian.
A graph $G$ is called a $2K_2$-free graph if it does not contain $2K_2$ as an induced subgraph. In 2014, Broersma, Patel and Pyatkin showed that every 25-tough $2K_2$-free graph on at least three vertices is Hamiltonian. Recently, Shan improved this result by showing that 3-tough is sufficient instead of 25-tough. In this paper, we show that every 2-tough $2K_2$-free graph on at least three vertices is Hamiltonian, which was conjectured by Gao and Pasechnik.
The relation between Hamiltonicity and toughness of a graph is a long standing research problem. The paper studies the Hamiltonicity of the Cartesian product graph $G_1\square G_2$ of graphs $G_1$ and $G_2$ satisfying that $G_1$ is traceable and $G_2$ is connected with a path factor. Let Pn be the path of order $n$ and $H$ be a connected bipartite graph. With certain requirements of $n$, we show that the following three statements are equivalent: (i) $P_n\square H$ is Hamiltonian; (ii) $P_n\square H$ is $1$-tough; and (iii) $H$ has a path factor.
The \emph{prism} over a graph $G$ is the product $G \Box K_2$, i.e., the graph obtained by taking two copies of $G$ and adding a perfect matching joining the two copies of each vertex by an edge. The graph $G$ is called \emph{prism-hamiltonian} if it has a hamiltonian prism. Jung showed that every $1$-tough $P_4$-free graph with at least three vertices is hamiltonian. In this paper, we extend this to observe that for $k \geq 1$ a $P_4$-free graph has a spanning \emph{$k$-walk} (closed walk using each vertex at most $k$ times) if and only if it is $\frac{1}{k}$-tough. As our main result, we sho…
Let $t>0$ be a real number and $G$ be a graph. We say $G$ is $t$-tough if for every cutset $S$ of $G$, the ratio of $|S|$ to the number of components of $G-S$ is at least $t$. The Toughness Conjecture of Chvátal, stating that there exists a constant $t_0$ such that every $t_0$-tough graph with at least three vertices is hamiltonian, is still open in general. For any given integer $k\ge 1$, a graph $G$ is $(P_2\cup kP_1)$ free if $G$ does not contain the disjoint union of $P_2$ and $k$ isolated vertices as an induced subgraph. In this note, we show that every 4-tough and $2k$-connected $(P_2\cu…
In 1974, Goodman and Hedetniemi proved that every 2-connected $(K_{1,3},K_{1,3}+e)$-free graph is hamiltonian. This result gave rise many other hamiltonicity conditions for various pairs and triples of forbidden connected subgraphs under additional connectivity conditions. In 1997, it was proved that a single forbidden connected subgraph $R$ in 2-connected graphs can create only a trivial class of hamiltonian graphs (complete graphs) with $R=P_3$. In this paper we prove that a single forbidden subgraph $R$ can create a non trivial class of hamiltonian graphs if $R$ is disconnected: $(\ast1)$ e…
Spectral radius, toughness and $k$-factor of graphs
School of Mathematics, East China University of Science and Technology（华东理工大学数学学院）；College of Mathematics and System Science, Xinjiang University（新疆大学数学与系统科学学院）
In 1952, Dirac proved that every 2-connected graph with minimum degree $δ$ either is hamiltonian or contains a cycle of length at least $2δ$. In 1986, Bauer and Schmeichel enlarged the bound $2δ$ to $2δ+2$ under additional 1-tough condition - an alternative and more natural necessary condition for a graph to be hamiltonian. In fact, the bound $2δ+2$ is sharp for a graph on $n$ vertices when $n\equiv 1(mod\ 3)$. In this paper we present the final version of this result which is sharp for each $n$: every 1-tough graph either is hamiltonian or contains a cycle of length at least $2δ+2$ when $n\eq…
Let $G$ be a $t$-tough graph on $n\ge 3$ vertices for some $t>0$. It was shown by Bauer et al. in 1995 that if the minimum degree of $G$ is greater than $\frac{n}{t+1}-1$, then $G$ is hamiltonian. In terms of Ore-type hamiltonicity conditions, the problem was only studied when $t$ is between 1 and 2. In this paper, we show that if the degree sum of any two nonadjacent vertices of $G$ is greater than $\frac{2n}{t+1}+t-2$, then $G$ is hamiltonian.
Let $G$ be a graph and let $f$ be a positive integer-valued function on $V(G)$. Assume that for all $S\subseteq V(G)$, $$\sum_{v\in I(G\setminus S)}f(v)(f(v)+1)\le |S|,$$ where $I(G\setminus S)$ denotes the set of isolated vertices of $G\setminus S$. In this paper, we show that if for all $S\subseteq V(G)$, $$ω(G\setminus S)\le \sum_{v\in S}(f(v)-1)+1,$$ and $\sum_{v\in V(G)}f(v)$ is even, then $G$ has a factor $F$ such that for each vertex $v$, $d_F(v)=f(v)$, where $ω(G\setminus S)$ denotes the number of components of $G\setminus S$. Moreover, we show that if for all $S\subseteq V(G)$, $$ω(G\…
In this paper, we consider a variant of Ramsey numbers which we call complementary Ramsey numbers $\bar{R}(m,t,s)$. We first establish their connections to pairs of Ramsey $(s,t)$-graphs. Using the classification of Ramsey $(s,t)$-graphs for small $s,t$, we determine the complementary Ramsey numbers $\bar{R}(m,t,s)$ for $(s,t)=(4,4)$ and $(3,6)$.
A graph is called $t$-tough if the removal of any vertex set $S$ that disconnects the graph leaves at most $|S|/t$ components. The toughness of a graph is the largest $t$ for which the graph is $t$-tough. A graph is minimally $t$-tough if the toughness of the graph is $t$ and the deletion of any edge from the graph decreases the toughness. The complexity class DP is the set of all languages that can be expressed as the intersection of a language in NP and a language in coNP. In this paper, we prove that recognizing minimally $t$-tough graphs is DP-complete for any positive rational number $t$.…
For a graph $G$, let $odd(G)$ and $ω(G)$ denote the number of odd components and the number of components of $G$, respectively. Then it is well-known that $G$ has a 1-factor if and only if $odd(G-S)\le |S|$ for all $S\subset V(G)$. Also it is clear that $odd(G-S) \le ω(G-S)$. In this paper we characterize a 1-tough graph $G$, which satisfies $ω(G-S) \le |S|$ for all $\emptyset \ne S \subset V(G)$, using an $H$-factor of a set-valued function $H:V(G) \to \{ \{1\}, \{0,2\} \}$. Moreover, we generalize this characterization to a graph that satisfies $ω(G-S) \le f(S)$ for all $\emptyset \ne S \sub…
The toughness $t(G)$ of a graph $G=(V,E)$ is defined as $t(G)=\min\{\frac{|S|}{c(G-S)}\}$, in which the minimum is taken over all $S\subset V$ such that $G-S$ is disconnected, where $c(G-S)$ denotes the number of components of $G-S$. We present two tight lower bounds for $t(G)$ in terms of the Laplacian eigenvalues and provide strong support for a conjecture for a better bound which, if true, implies both bounds, and improves and generalizes known bounds by Alon, Brouwer, and the first author. As applications, several new results on perfect matchings, factors and walks from Laplacian eigenvalu…
