For a directed graph $G$ without loops or parallel edges, let $β(G)$ denote the size of the smallest feedback arc set, i.e., the smallest subset $X \subset E(G)$ such that $G \sm X$ has no directed cycles. Let $γ(G)$ be the number of unordered pairs of vertices of $G$ which are not adjacent. We prove that every directed graph whose shortest directed cycle has length at least $r \ge 4$ satisfies $β(G) \le cγ(G)/r^2$, where $c$ is an absolute constant. This is tight up to the constant factor and extends a result of Chudnovsky, Seymour, and Sullivan.
This result can be also used to answer a question of Yuster concerning almost given length cycles in digraphs. We show that for any fixed $0 < θ< 1/2$ and sufficiently large $n$, if $G$ is a digraph with $n$ vertices and $β(G) \ge θn^2$, then for any $0 \le m \le θn-o(n)$ it contains a directed cycle whose length is between $m$ and $m+6 θ^{-1/2}$. Moreover, there is a constant $C$ such that either $G$ contains directed cycles of every length between $C$ and $θn-o(n)$ or it is close to a digraph $G'$ with a simple structure: every strong component of $G'$ is periodic. These results are also tight up to the constant factors.
In this short note we prove that for every $k\in \mathbb{N}$ there is a $t_k\in\mathbb{N}$ such that for every digraph $G$ there are either $k$ edge-disjoint directed cycles in $G$ or a set $X$ of at most $t_k$ edges such that $G-X$ contains no directed cycle.
In 1960, Ghouila-Houri extended Dirac's theorem to directed graphs by proving that if D is a directed graph on n vertices with minimum out-degree and in-degree at least n/2 (i.e. minimum semi-degree at least n/2), then D contains a directed Hamiltonian cycle. Of course there are other orientations of a cycle in a directed graph and it is not clear that the semi-degree threshold for the directed Hamiltonian cycle is the same as the semi-degree threshold for some other orientation. In 1980, Grant initiated the problem of determining the minimum semi-degree threshold for the anti-directed Hamilto…
Using some combinatorial techniques, in this note, it is proved that if $α\geq 0.28866$, then any digraph on $n$ vertices with minimum outdegree at least $αn$ contains a directed cycle of length at most 4.
We show that the complete symmetric digraph $K_{2m}^\ast$ admits a resolvable decomposition into directed cycles of length $m$ for all odd $m$, $5 \le m \le 49$. Consequently, $K_{n}^\ast$ admits a resolvable decomposition into directed cycles of length $m$ for all $n \equiv 0 \pmod{2m}$ and odd $m$, $5 \le m \le 49$.
We study the resilience of random and pseudorandom directed graphs with respect to the property of having long directed cycles. For every $0 < γ< 1/2$ we find a constant $c=c(γ)$ such that the following holds. Let $G=(V,E)$ be a (pseudo)random directed graph on $n$ vertices, and let $G'$ be a subgraph of $G$ with $(1/2+γ)|E|$ edges. Then $G'$ contains a directed cycle of length at least $(c-o(1))n$. Moreover, there is a subgraph $G''$ of $G$ with $(1/2+γ-o(1))|E|$ edges that does not contain a cycle of length at least $cn$.
The Directed Hamilton-Waterloo Problem asks for a directed $2$-factorization of the complete symmetric digraph $K_v^*$ where there are two non-isomorphic $2$-factors. In the uniform version of the problem, factors consist of either directed $m$-cycles or $n$-cycles. In this paper, necessary conditions for a solution of this problem are given, and the problem is solved for the factors with $(m, n)\in \{(4,6),(4,8),(4,12),(4,16),(6,12)$,$(8,16),(3,5),(3,15),(5,15)\}$.
Let D(n,p) be the random directed graph on n vertices where each of the n(n-1) possible arcs is present independently with probability p. A celebrated result of Frieze shows that if $p\ge(\log n+ω(1))/n$ then D(n,p) typically has a directed Hamilton cycle, and this is best possible. In this paper, we obtain a strengthening of this result, showing that under the same condition, the number of directed Hamilton cycles in D(n,p) is typically $n!(p(1+o(1)))^{n}$. We also prove a hitting-time version of this statement, showing that in the random directed graph process, as soon as every vertex has in…
The number of spanning trees in a class of directed circulant graphs with generators depending linearly on the number of vertices $βn$, and in the $n$-th and $(n-1)$-th power graphs of the $βn$-cycle are evaluated as a product of $\lceilβ/2\rceil-1$ terms.
A $k$-ranking of a directed graph $G$ is a labeling of the vertex set of $G$ with $k$ positive integers such that every directed path connecting two vertices with the same label includes a vertex with a larger label in between. The rank number of $G$ is defined to be the smallest $k$ such that $G$ has a $k$-ranking. We find the largest possible directed graph that can be obtained from a directed path or a directed cycle by attaching new edges to the vertices such that the new graphs have the same rank number as the original graphs. The adjacency matrix of the resulting graph is embedded in the…
For any directed graph G with vertex set V, the graph G^(d) is said to be a subset power of G and is defined to have vertex set equal to the set of d-element subsets of V; in G^(d), there is an edge from A to B if and only if we can label the elements of A and B such that there is an edge in G between each pair of corresponding elements. We determine the complete cycle structure of C^(d), where C is a directed cycle of length l.
A Hamilton cycle in a digraph is a cycle that passes through all the vertices, where all the arcs are oriented in the same direction. The problem of finding Hamilton cycles in directed graphs is well studied and is known to be hard. One of the main reasons for this, is that there is no general tool for finding Hamilton cycles in directed graphs comparable to the so called Pos?a `rotation-extension' technique for the undirected analogue. Let ${\mathcal D}(n,p)$ denote the random digraph on vertex set $[n]$, obtained by adding each directed edge independently with probability $p$. Here, we prese…
We introduce a new determinantal method to count cycle systems in a directed graph that generalizes Gessel and Viennot's determinantal method on path systems. The method gives new insight into the enumeration of domino tilings of Aztec diamonds, Aztec pillows, and related regions.
Nash-Williams proved that for an undirected graph $ G $ the set $ E(G) $ can be partitioned into cycles if and only if every cut has either even or infinite number of edges. Later C. Thomassen gave a simpler proof for this and conjectured the following directed analogue of the theorem: the edge set of a digraph can be partitioned into directed cycles if and only if for each subset of the vertices the cardinality of the ingoing and the outgoing edges are equal. The aim of the paper is to prove this conjecture.
An Italian dominating function on a (di)graph $G$ with vertex set $V(G)$ is a function $f: V(G) \to \{0, 1, 2\}$ such that every vertex $v \in V(G)$ such that $f(v) = 0$ has an (in)neighbour assigned 2 or two (in)neighbours assigned 1. We complete the investigation of the Italian domination numbers of Cartesian products of directed cycles.
We show that every directed graph with minimum out-degree at least $18k$ contains at least $k$ vertex disjoint cycles. This is an improvement over the result of Alon who showed this result for digraphs of minimum out-degree at least $64k$. The main benefit of the argument is that getting better results for small values of $k$ allows for further improvements to the constant.
Jaeger's directed cycle double cover conjecture can be formulated as a problem of existence of special perfect matchings in a class of graphs that we call hexagon graphs. In this work, we explore the structure of hexagon graphs. We show that hexagon graphs are braces that can be generated from the ladder on 8 vertices using two types of McCuaig's augmentations.
We survey some recent results on long-standing conjectures regarding Hamilton cycles in directed graphs, oriented graphs and tournaments. We also combine some of these to prove the following approximate result towards Kelly's conjecture on Hamilton decompositions of regular tournaments: the edges of every regular tournament can be covered by a set of Hamilton cycles which are `almost' edge-disjoint. We also highlight the role that the notion of `robust expansion' plays in several of the proofs. New and old open problems are discussed.
The Directed Oberwolfach Problem can be considered as the directed version of the well-known Oberwolfach Problem, first mentioned by Ringel at a conference in Oberwolfach, Germany in 1967. In this paper, we describe some new partial results on the Directed Oberwolfach Problem with variable cycle lengths. In particular, we show that the complete symmetric digraph $K_n^{*}$ admits a $( \vec{C}_2, ..., \vec{C}_2, \vec{C}_3) $-factorization for all $ n\equiv 1, 3,$ or $ 7\pmod{8}$. We also show that $K_n^{*}$ admits a $(\vec{C}_2, \vec{C}_{n-2})$-factorization for any integer $n \geq 5$.
The dichromatic number of a digraph $D$ is the minimum number of colors of a vertex coloring of $D$ such that $D$ has no monochromatic cycles. The Hajós join were recently extended to digraphs (using the dichromatic number) by J. Bang-Jensen et. al. and Hajós (directed) operations is a tool to obtain r-(di)chromatic (di)graphs. J. Bang-Jensen et. al. posed in 2020 the problem of how to obtain the symmetric cycle of length 5 from symmetric cycles of length 3. We recently solved this problem by applying a genetic algorithm. In this article, a procedure is presented to construct any odd symmetric…
The vertex set of the kth cartesian power of a directed cycle of length m can be naturally identified with the set of k-tuples of integers modulo m. For any two vertices v and w of this graph, it is easy to see that if there is a hamiltonian path from v to w, then the sum of the coordinates of v is congruent, modulo m, to one more than the sum of the coordinates of w. We prove the converse, unless k = 2 and m is odd.
The Bermond-Thomassen conjecture states that, for any positive integer $r$, a digraph of minimum out-degree at least $2r-1$ contains at least $r$ vertex-disjoint directed cycles. In 2014, Bang-Jensen, Bessy and Thomass\' e proved the conjecture for tournaments. In 2010, Lichiardopol conjectured that a tournament $T$ with minimum out-degree at least $(q-1)r-1$ contains at least $r$ vertex-disjoint $q$-cycles, where integer $q\geq3$ and $r\geq1$. In this paper, we address Lichiardopol's conjecture affirmatively. In particular, the case $q=3$ implies Bermond-Thomassen conjecture for tournaments.
Consider a directed analogue of the random graph process on $n$ vertices, where the $n(n-1)$ edges are ordered uniformly at random and revealed one at a time. It is known that w.h.p.\@ the first digraph in this process with both in-degree and out-degree $\geq q$ has a $[q]$-edge-coloring with a Hamilton cycle in each color. We show that this coloring can be constructed online, where each edge must be irrevocably colored as soon as it appears. In a similar fashion, for the \emph{undirected} random graph process, we present an online $[n]$-edge-coloring algorithm which yields w.h.p.\@ $q$ disjoi…
Let D be a directed graph with vertex set V and order n. An anti-directed hamiltonian cycle H in D is a hamiltonian cycle in the graph underlying D such that no pair of consecutive arcs in H form a directed path in D. An anti-directed 2-factor in D is a vertex-disjoint collection of anti-directed cycles in D that span V. It was proved in [3] that if the indegree and the outdegree of each vertex of D is greater than (9/16)n then D contains an anti-directed hamilton cycle. In this paper we prove that given a directed graph D, the problem of determining whether D has an anti-directed 2-factor is …
Let $D=(V,A)$ be a directed graph of order $n\geq 6$. Let $W$ be a subset of $V$ with $|W|\geq 6$. Suppose that every vertex of $W$ has degree at least $(3n-3)/2$ in $D$. Then for any integer partition $|W|=n_1+n_2$ with $n_1\geq 3$ and $n_2\geq 3$, $D$ contains two disjoint directed cycles $C_1$ and $C_2$ such that $|V(C_1)\cap W|=n_1$ and $|V(C_2)\cap W|=n_2$. We conjecture that for any integer partition $|W|=n_1+n_2+\cdots +n_k$ with $k\geq 3$ and $n_i\geq 3(1\leq i\leq k)$, $D$ contains $k$ disjoint directed cycles $C_1,C_2,\ldots , C_k$ such that $|V(C_i)\cap W|=n_i$ for all $1\leq i\leq …
In 1972, Woodall raised the following Ore type condition for directed Hamilton cycles in digraphs: Let $D$ be a digraph. If for every vertex pair $u$ and $v$, where there is no arc from $u$ to $v$, we have $d^+u)+d^-(v)\geq |D|$, then $D$ has a directed Hamilton cycle. By a correspondence between bipartite graphs and digraphs, the above result is equivalent to the following result of Las Vergnas: Let $G = (B,W)$ be a balanced bipartite graph. If for any $b \in B$ and $w \in W$, where $b$ and $w$ are nonadjacent, we have $d(w)+d(b) \geq |G|/2 + 1$, then every perfect matching of $G$ is containe…
Let $γ(C_m\Box C_n)$ be the domination number of the Cartesian product of directed cycles $C_m$ and $C_n$ for $m,n\geq2$. Shaheen [] and Liu and al.[ ], [ ] determined the value of $γ(C_m\Box C_n)$ when $m \leq 6$ and when both $m$ and $n$ $\equiv 0$ $(mod\: 3)$. In this article we give, in general, the value of $γ(C_m\Box C_n)$ when $m\equiv 2$ $(mod\: 3)$ and improve the known lower bound for most of the remaining cases. We also disprove the conjectured formula for the case $m$ $\equiv 0$ $(mod\: 3)$ appearing in \cite{}
We examine the necessary and sufficient conditions for a complete symmetric equipartite digraph $K_{n[m]}^\ast$ with $n$ parts of size $m$ to admit a resolvable decomposition into directed cycles of length $t$. We show that the obvious necessary conditions are sufficient for $m,n,t \ge 2$ in each of the following four cases: (i) $m(n-1)$ is even; (ii) $\gcd(m,n) \not\in \{1,3\}$; (iii) $\gcd(m,n)=1$ and $4|n$ or $6|n$; and (iv) $\gcd(m,n)=3$, and if $n=6$, then $p|m$ for a prime $p \le 37$.
Let $\overrightarrow{P_k}$ and $\overrightarrow{C_k}$ denote the directed path and the directed cycle of order $k$, respectively. In this paper, we determine the precise maximum size of $\overrightarrow{P_k}$-free digraphs of order $n$ as well as the extremal digraphs attaining the maximum size for large $n$. For all $n$, we also determine the precise maximum size of $\overrightarrow{C_k}$-free digraphs of order $n$ as well as the extremal digraphs attaining the maximum size. In addition, Huang and Lyu [\textit{Discrete Math. 343(5) 2020}] characterized the extremal digraphs avoiding an orient…
The graph of overlapping permutations is a directed graph that is an analogue to the De Bruijn graph. It consists of vertices that are permutations of length $n$ and edges that are permutations of length $n+1$ in which an edge $a_1\cdots a_{n+1}$ would connect the standardization of $a_1\cdots a_n$ to the standardization of $a_2\cdots a_{n+1}$. We examine properties of this graph to determine where directed cycles can exist, to count the number of directed $2$-cycles within the graph, and to enumerate the vertices that are contained within closed walks and directed cycles of more general lengt…
A conjecture by Lichiardopol states that for every $k \ge 1$ there exists an integer $g(k)$ such that every digraph of minimum out-degree at least $g(k)$ contains $k$ vertex-disjoint directed cycles of pairwise distinct lengths. Motivated by Lichiardopol's conjecture, we study the existence of vertex-disjoint directed cycles satisfying length constraints in digraphs of large connectivity or large minimum degree. Our main result is that for every $k \in \mathbb{N}$, there exists $s(k) \in \mathbb{N}$ such that every strongly $s(k)$-connected digraph contains $k$ vertex-disjoint directed cycles …
A subgraph of an edge-coloured graph is called rainbow if all its edges have different colours. The problem of finding rainbow subgraphs goes back to the work of Euler on transversals in Latin squares and was extensively studied since then. In this paper we consider two related questions concerning rainbow subgraphs of complete, edge-coloured graphs and digraphs. In the first part, we show that every properly edge-coloured complete directed graph contains a directed rainbow cycle of length $n-O(n^{4/5})$. This is motivated by an old problem of Hahn and improves a result of Gyarfas and Sarkozy.…
The Caccetta-Häggkvist conjecture implies that for every integer $k\ge 1$, if $G$ is a bipartite digraph, with $n$ vertices in each part, and every vertex has out-degree more than $n/(k+1)$, then $G$ has a directed cycle of length at most $2k$. If true this is best possible, and we prove this for $k = 1,2,3,4,6$ and all $k\ge 224,539$. More generally, we conjecture that for every integer $k\ge 1$, and every pair of reals $α, β> 0$ with $kα+β>1$, if $G$ is a bipartite digraph with bipartition $(A,B)$, where every vertex in $A$ has out-degree at least $β|B|$, and every vertex in $B$ has out-degr…
A classical theorem of Ghouila-Houri from 1960 asserts that every directed graph on $n$ vertices with minimum out-degree and in-degree at least $n/2$ contains a directed Hamilton cycle. In this paper we extend this theorem to a random directed graph ${\mathcal D}(n,p)$, that is, a directed graph in which every ordered pair $(u,v)$ becomes an arc with probability $p$ independently of all other pairs. Motivated by the study of resilience of properties of random graphs, we prove that if $p \gg \log n/\sqrt{n}$, then a.a.s. every subdigraph of ${\mathcal D}(n,p)$ with minimum out-degree and in-deg…
We determine the cycle packing number of a directed graph using elementary projective algebraic geometry. Our idea is rooted in the Khovanov-Rozansky theory. In fact, using the Khovanov-Rozansky homology of a graph, we also obtain algebraic methods of detecting directed and undirected cycles containing a particular vertex or edge.
Let $G = (V, E)$ be an $n$-vertex edge-colored graph. In 2013, H. Li proved that if every vertex $v \in V$ is incident to at least $(n+1)/2$ distinctly colored edges, then $G$ admits a rainbow triangle. We establish a corresponding result for fixed even rainbow $\ell$-cycles $C_{\ell}$: if every vertex $v \in V$ is incident to at least $(n+5)/3$ distinctly colored edges, where $n \geq n_0(\ell)$ is sufficiently large, then $G$ admits an even rainbow $\ell$-cycle $C_{\ell}$. This result is best possible whenever $\ell \not\equiv 0$ (mod 3). Correspondingly, we also show that for a fixed (even o…
Rosenfeld in 1974 conjectured that there is an integer N > 8 such that every tournament of order n > N contains every non-directed cycle of order n. We prove that, with exactly 35 exceptions, every tournament of order n > 2 contains each non-directed cycle of order m, 2 < m < n+1.
A directed cycle double cover of a graph G is a family of cycles of G, each provided with an orientation, such that every edge of G is covered by exactly two oppositely directed cycles. Explicit obstacles to the existence of a directed cycle double cover in a graph are bridges. Jaeger conjectured that bridges are actually the only obstacles. One of the difficulties in proving the Jaeger's conjecture lies in discovering and avoiding obstructions to partial strategies that, if successful, create directed cycle double covers. In this work, we suggest a way to circumvent this difficulty. We formul…
For $t \ge 2$, let us call a digraph $D$ \emph{t-chordal} if all induced directed cycles in $D$ have length equal to $t$. In a previous paper, we asked for which $t$ it is true that $t$-chordal graphs with bounded clique number have bounded dichromatic number. Recently, Aboulker, Bousquet, and de Verclos answered this in the negative for $t=3$, that is, they gave a construction of $3$-chordal digraphs with clique number at most $3$ and arbitrarily large dichromatic number. In this paper, we extend their result, giving for each $t \ge 3$ a construction of digraphs with clique number at most $3$…
We show that if $C_1$ and $C_2$ are directed cycles (of length at least two), then the Cartesian product $C_1 \Box C_2$ has two arc-disjoint hamiltonian paths. (This answers a question asked by J. A. Gallian in 1985.) The same conclusion also holds for the Cartesian product of any four or more directed cycles (of length at least two), but some cases remain open for the Cartesian product of three directed cycles. We also discuss the existence of arc-disjoint hamiltonian paths in $2$-generated Cayley digraphs on (finite or infinite) abelian groups.
