An $r$-graph $G$ is a pair $(V,E)$ such that $V$ is a set and $E$ is a family of $r$-element subsets of $V$. The \emph{independence number} $α(G)$ of $G$ is the size of a largest subset $I$ of $V$ such that no member of $E$ is a subset of $I$. The \emph{transversal number} $τ(G)$ of $G$ is the size of a smallest subset $T$ of $V$ that intersects each member of $E$. $G$ is said to be \emph{connected} if for every distinct $v$ and $w$ in $V$ there exists a \emph{path} from $v$ to $w$ (that is, a sequence $e_1, \dots, e_p$ of members of $E$ such that $v \in e_1$, $w \in e_p$, and if $p \geq 2$, then for each $i \in \{1, \dots, p-1\}$, $e_i$ intersects $e_{i+1}$). The \emph{degree} of a member $v$ of $V$ is the number of members of $E$ that contain $v$. The maximum of the degrees of the members of $V$ is denoted by $Δ(G)$. We show that for any $1 \leq k < n$, if $G = (V,E)$ is a connected $r$-graph, $|V| = n$, and $Δ(G) = k$, then \[α(G) \leq n - \left \lceil \frac{n-1}{k(r-1)} \right \rceil, \quad τ(G) \geq \left \lceil \frac{n-1}{k(r-1)} \right \rceil,\] and these bounds are sharp. The two bounds are equivalent.
The $k$-independence number of a graph $G$ is the maximum size of a set of vertices at pairwise distance greater than $k$. In this paper, for each positive integer $k$, we prove sharp upper bounds for the $k$-independence number in an $n$-vertex connected graph with given minimum and maximum degree.
A well known upper bound for the independence number $α(G)$ of a graph $G$, due to Cvetković, is that \begin{equation*} α(G) \le n^0 + \min\{n^+ , n^-\} \end{equation*} where $(n^+, n^0, n^-)$ is the inertia of $G$. We prove that this bound is also an upper bound for the quantum independence number $α_q$(G), where $α_q(G) \ge α(G)$ and for some graphs $α_q(G) \gg α(G)$. We identify numerous graphs for which $α(G) = α_q(G)$, thus increasing the number of graphs for which $α_q$ is known. We also demonstrate that there are graphs for which the above bound is not exact with any Hermitian weight ma…
Given a graph $G$, the adjacency matrix and degree diagonal matrix of $G$ are denoted by $A(G)$ and $D(G)$, respectively. In 2017, Nikiforov \cite{0007} proposed the $A_α$-matrix: $A_α(G)=αD(G)+(1-α)A(G),$ where $α\in [0, 1]$. The largest eigenvalue of this novel matrix is called the $A_α$-index of $G$. In this paper, we characterize the graphs with minimum $A_α$-index among $n$-vertex graphs with independence number $i$ for $α\in[0,1)$, where $i=1,\lfloor\frac{n}{2}\rfloor,\lceil\frac{n}{2}\rceil,{\lfloor\frac{n}{2}\rfloor+1},n-3,n-2,n-1,$ whereas for $i=2$ we consider the same problem for $α…
A broadcast on a nontrivial connected graph G with vertex set V is a function f from V to {0,1,...,diam(G)} such that f(v) is at most the eccentricity of v for all vertices v. The weight of f is the sum of the function values taken over V. A vertex u hears f from v if f(v) is positive and d(u,v) is at most f(v). A broadcast f is boundary independent if, for any vertex w that hears f from vertices v_{1},...,v_{k}, where k is at least 2, d(w,v_{i}) equals f(v_{i}) for each i. The maximum weight of a boundary independent broadcast on G is denoted by α_{bn}(G). We prove a sharp upper bound on α_{b…
After $2$-crossing-critical graphs were characterized in 2016, their most general subfamily, large $3$-connected $2$-crossing-critical graphs, has attracted separate attention. This paper presents sharp upper and lower bounds for their domination and independence number.
Sharp Bounds on the Independence Number of Simplicial Spheres
Duke University（杜克大学）；University of California, Davis（加州大学戴维斯分校）；Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health（哈佛大学陈曾熙公共卫生学院）；University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa（夏威夷大学马诺阿分校）
This article provides sharp bounds for the maximum number of edges possible in a simple graph with restricted values of two of the three parameters, namely, maxi- mum matching size, independence number and maximum degree. We also construct extremal graphs that achieve the edge bounds in all cases. We further establish uniqueness of these extremal graphs whenever they are unique.
A broadcast on a nontrivial connected graph G with vertex set V is a function f from V to {0,1,...,diam(G)} such that f(v) is at most the eccentricity of v for all v in V. The weight of f is the sum of the function values taken over V. A vertex u hears f from v if f(v) is positive and d(u,v) is at most f(v). A broadcast f is dominating if every vertex of G hears f. The upper broadcast number of G is Γ_{b}(G), which is the maximum weight of a minimal dominating broadcast on G. A broadcast f is boundary independent if, for any vertex w that hears f from vertices v_{1},...,v_{k}, where k is at le…
A well known upper bound for the independence number $α(G)$ of a graph $G$, is that \[ α(G) \le n^0 + \min\{n^+ , n^-\}, \] where $(n^+, n^0, n^-)$ is the inertia of $G$. We prove that this bound is also an upper bound for the quantum independence number $α_q$(G), where $α_q(G) \ge α(G)$. We identify numerous graphs for which $α(G) = α_q(G)$ and demonstrate that there are graphs for which the above bound is not exact with any Hermitian weight matrix, for $α(G)$ and $α_q(G)$. This result complements results by the authors that many spectral lower bounds for the chromatic number are also lower b…
A $k$-ended tree is a tree with at most $k$ leaves. In this note, we give a simple proof for the following theorem. Let $G$ be a connected graph and $k$ be an integer ($k\geq 2$). Let $S$ be a vertex subset of $G$ such that $α_{G}(S) \leq k + κ_{G}(S)- 1.$ Then, $G$ has a $k$-ended tree which covers $S.$ Moreover, the condition is sharp.
Let $i(r,g)$ denote the infimum of the ratio $\frac{α(G)}{|V(G)|}$ over the $r$-regular graphs of girth at least $g$, where $α(G)$ is the independence number of $G$, and let $i(r,\infty) := \lim\limits_{g \to \infty} i(r,g)$. Recently, several new lower bounds of $i(3,\infty)$ were obtained. In particular, Hoppen and Wormald showed in 2015 that $i(3, \infty) \ge 0.4375$, and Csóka improved it to $i(3,\infty) \ge 0.44533$ in 2016. Bollobás proved the upper bound $i(3,\infty) < \frac{6}{13}$ in 1981, and McKay improved it to $i(3,\infty) < 0.45537$ in 1987. There were no improvements since then.…
The $k$-independence number of a graph, $α_k(G)$, is the maximum size of a set of vertices at pairwise distance greater than $k$, or alternatively, the independence number of the $k$-th power graph $G^k$. Although it is known that $α_k(G)=α(G^k)$, this, in general, does not hold for most graph products, and thus the existing bounds for $α$ of graph products cannot be used. In this paper we present sharp upper bounds for the $k$-independence number of several graph products. In particular, we focus on the Cartesian, tensor, strong, and lexicographic products. Some of the bounds previously known…
In this paper, we obtain two spectral upper bounds for the $k$-independence number of a graph which is is the maximum size of a set of vertices at pairwise distance greater than $k$. We construct graphs that attain equality for our first bound and show that our second bound compares favorably to previous bounds on the $k$-independence number.
TxGraffiti is an automated conjecturing program that produces graph theoretic conjectures in the form of conjectured inequalities. This program written and maintained by the second author since 2017 was inspired by the successes of previous automated conjecturing programs including Fajtlowicz's GRAFFITI and DeLaViña's GRAFFITI.pc. In this paper we prove and generalize several conjectures generated by TxGraffiti when it was prompted to conjecture on the \emph{independence number}, the \emph{domination number}, and the \emph{matching number} (and generalizations of each of these graph invariants…
We consider the following problem posed by Erdos in 1962. Suppose that $G$ is an $n$-vertex graph where the number of $s$-cliques in $G$ is $t$. How small can the independence number of $G$ be? Our main result suggests that for fixed $s$, the smallest possible independence number undergoes a transition at $t=n^{s/2+o(1)}$. In the case of triangles ($s=3$) we obtain the following result which is sharp apart from constant factors and generalizes basic results in Ramsey theory: there exists $c>0$ such that every $n$-vertex graph with $t$ triangles has independence number at least $$c \cdot \min\l…
We prove that $\frac{7}{4}α(G)+β(G)\geq n(G)$ and $α(G)+\frac{3}{2}β(G)\geq n(G)$ for every triangle-free graph $G$ with maximum degree at most $4$, where $α(G)$ is the independence number and $β(G)$ is the matching number of $G$, respectively. These results are sharp for a graph on $13$ vertices. Furthermore we show $χ(G)\leq \frac{7}{4}ω(G)$ for $\{3K_1,K_1\cup K_5\}$-free graphs, where $χ(G)$ is the chromatic number and $ω(G)$ is the clique number of $G$, respectively.
If $A$ is an independent set of a graph $G$ such that the vertices in $A$ have different degrees, then we call $A$ an irregular independent set of $G$. If $D$ is a dominating set of $G$ such that the vertices that are not in $D$ have different numbers of neighbours in $D$, then we call $D$ an irregular dominating set of $G$. The size of a largest irregular independent set of $G$ and the size of a smallest irregular dominating set of $G$ are denoted by $α_{ir}(G)$ and $γ_{ir}(G)$, respectively. We initiate the investigation of these two graph parameters. For each of them, we obtain sharp bounds…
An edge-colored connected graph $G$ is properly connected if between every pair of distinct vertices, there exists a path that no two adjacent edges have a same color. Fujita (2019) introduced the optimal proper connection number ${\mathrm{pc}_{\mathrm{opt}}}(G)$ for a monochromatic connected graph $G$, to make a connected graph properly connected efficiently. More precisely, ${\mathrm{pc}_{\mathrm{opt}}}(G)$ is the smallest integer $p+q$ when one converts a given monochromatic graph $G$ into a properly connected graph by recoloring $p$ edges with $q$ colors. In this paper, we show that ${\mat…
In this paper, we obtain the sharp upper and lower bounds for the spectral radius of a nonnegative weakly irreducible tensor. We also apply these bounds to the adjacency spectral radius and signless Laplacian spectral radius of a uniform hypergraph.
In this paper, we obtain a sharp upper bound for the spectral radius of a nonnegative matrix. This result is used to present upper bounds for the adjacency spectral radius, the Laplacian spectral radius, the signless Laplacian spectral radius, the distance spectral radius, the distance Laplacian spectral radius, the distance signless Laplacian spectral radius of a graph or a digraph. These results are new or generalize some known results.
The $k^{\text{th}}$ power of a graph $G=(V,E)$, $G^k$, is the graph whose vertex set is $V$ and in which two distinct vertices are adjacent if and only if their distance in $G$ is at most $k$. This article proves various eigenvalue bounds for the independence number and chromatic number of $G^k$ which purely depend on the spectrum of $G$, together with a method to optimize them. Our bounds for the $k$-independence number also work for its quantum counterpart, which is not known to be a computable parameter in general, thus justifying the use of integer programming to optimize them. Some of the…
In this paper, we obtain the sharp upper and lower bounds for the spectral radius of a nonnegative irreducible matrix. We also apply these bounds to various matrices associated with a graph or a digraph, obtain some new results or known results about various spectral radii, including the adjacency spectral radius, the signless Laplacian spectral radius, the distance spectral radius, the distance signless Laplacian spectral radius of a graph or a digraph.
We introduce a procedure, called the Degree Sequence Index Strategy (DSI), by which to bound graph invariants by certain indices in the ordered degree sequence. As an illustration of the DSI strategy, we show how it can be used to give new upper and lower bounds on the $k$-independence and the $k$-domination numbers. These include, among other things, a double generalization of the annihilation number, a recently introduced upper bound on the independence number. Next, we use the DSI strategy in conjunction with planarity, to generalize some results of Caro and Roddity about independence numbe…
An edge-colored graph $G$ is conflict-free connected if any two of its vertices are connected by a path, which contains a color used on exactly one of its edges. The conflict-free connection number of a connected graph $G$, denoted by $cfc(G)$, is defined as the minimum number of colors that are required in order to make $G$ conflict-free connected. In this paper, we investigate the relation between the conflict-free connection number and the independence number of a graph. We firstly show that $cfc(G)\le α(G)$ for any connected graph $G$, and an example is given showing that the bound is shar…
For $k\ge 1$, the $k$-independence number $α_k$ of a graph is the maximum number of vertices that are mutually at distance greater than $k$. The well-known inertia and ratio bounds for the (1-)independence number $α(=α_1)$ of a graph, due to Cvetković and Hoffman, respectively, were generalized recently for every value of $k$. We show that, for graphs with enough regularity, the polynomials involved in such generalizations are closely related and give exact values for $α_k$, showing a new relationship between the inertia and ratio type bounds. Additionally, we investigate the existence and pro…
Let $G$ be a connected graph. The \emph{rainbow connection number $rc(G)$} of a graph $G$ was recently introduced by Chartrand et al. Li et al. proved that for every bridgeless graph $G$ with diameter 2, $rc(G)\leq 5$. They gave examples for which $rc(G)\leq 4$. However, they could not show that the upper bound 5 is sharp. It is known that for a graph $G$ with diameter 2, to determine $rc(G)$ is NP-hard. So, it is interesting to know the best upper bound of $rc(G)$ for such a graph $G$. In this paper, we use different way to obtain the same upper bound, and moreover, examples are given to show…
The annihilation number $a(G)$ of a graph $G$ is an efficiently computable upper bound on the independence number $α(G)$ of $G$. Recently, Hiller observed that a characterization of the graphs $G$ with $α(G)=a(G)$ due to Larson and Pepper is false. Since the known efficient algorithm recognizing these graphs was based on this characterization, the complexity of recognizing graphs $G$ with $α(G)=a(G)$ was once again open. We show that these graphs can indeed be recognized efficiently. More generally, we show that recognizing graphs $G$ with $α(G)\geq a(G)-\ell$ is fixed parameter tractable usin…
Given a graph $G$ and an integer $\ell\ge 2$, we denote by $α_{\ell}(G)$ the maximum size of a $K_{\ell}$-free subset of vertices in $V(G)$. A recent question of Nenadov and Pehova asks for determining the best possible minimum degree conditions forcing clique-factors in $n$-vertex graphs $G$ with $α_{\ell}(G) = o(n)$, which can be seen as a Ramsey--Turán variant of the celebrated Hajnal--Szemerédi theorem. In this paper we find the asymptotical sharp minimum degree threshold for $K_r$-factors in $n$-vertex graphs $G$ with $α_\ell(G)=n^{1-o(1)}$ for all $r\ge \ell\ge 2$.
An edge-colored graph $G$, where adjacent edges may be colored the same, is rainbow connected if any two vertices of $G$ are connected by a path whose edges have distinct colors. The rainbow connection number $rc(G)$ of a connected graph $G$ is the smallest number of colors that are needed in order to make $G$ rainbow connected. In this paper, we give a sharp upper bound that $rc(G)\leq\lceil\frac{n}{2}\rceil$ for any 2-connected graph $G$ of order $n$, which improves the results of Caro et al. to best possible.
A distance graph is an undirected graph on the integers where two integers are adjacent if their difference is in a prescribed distance set. The independence ratio of a distance graph $G$ is the maximum density of an independent set in $G$. Lih, Liu, and Zhu [Star extremal circulant graphs, SIAM J. Discrete Math. 12 (1999) 491--499] showed that the independence ratio is equal to the inverse of the fractional chromatic number, thus relating the concept to the well studied question of finding the chromatic number of distance graphs. We prove that the independence ratio of a distance graph is ach…
Determining the size of a maximum independent set of a graph $G$, denoted by $α(G)$, is an NP-hard problem. Therefore, many attempts are made to find upper and lower bounds, or exact values of $α(G)$ for special classes of graphs. This paper is aimed toward studying this problem for the class of generalized Petersen graphs. We find new upper and lower bounds and some exact values for $α(P(n,k))$. With a computer program we have obtained exact values for each $n<78$. In \cite{MR2381433} it is conjectured that $β(P(n, k)) \leq n + \lceil\frac{n}{5}\rceil $, for all $n$ and $k$. We prove this con…
Extremal problems involving independent sets are much studied. Two of the most important extremal problems in this context are concerned with the sharp upper bounds for the number of independent sets of fixed size and the independence number. In literature, these sharp upper bounds are derived in completely different contexts. In this paper, we show that both of these sharp upper bounds can be derived by considering Lex graphs. More exactly, they depend on two parameters of a sequence defined on them.
The upper tail problem in the Erdős--Rényi random graph $G\sim\mathcal{G}_{n,p}$ asks to estimate the probability that the number of copies of a graph $H$ in $G$ exceeds its expectation by a factor $1+δ$. Chatterjee and Dembo showed that in the sparse regime of $p\to 0$ as $n\to\infty$ with $p \geq n^{-α}$ for an explicit $α=α_H>0$, this problem reduces to a natural variational problem on weighted graphs, which was thereafter asymptotically solved by two of the authors in the case where $H$ is a clique. Here we extend the latter work to any fixed graph $H$ and determine a function $c_H(δ)$ suc…
Tree-independence number of $K_{1,d}$-free graph classes
Faculty of Information Studies in Novo mesto（新梅斯托信息学院）；FAMNIT, University of Primorska（滨海大学 FAMNIT）；Department of Mathematical Sciences, KAIST（韩国科学技术院数学科学系）；Discrete Mathematics Group, Institute for Basic Science, KAIST（韩国科学技术院基础科学研究院离散数学组）；Department of Combinatorics and Optimization, University of Waterloo（滑铁卢大学组合优化系）；Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana（卢布尔雅那大学数学物理学院）
The \emph{regular independence number}, introduced by Albertson and Boutin in 1990, is the maximum cardinality of an independent set of $G$ in which all vertices have equal degree in $G$. Recently, Caro, Hansberg and Pepper introduced the concept of regular $k$-independence number, which is a natural generalization of the regular independence number. A \emph{$k$-independent set} is a set of vertices whose induced subgraph has maximum degree at most $k$. The \emph{regular $k$-independence number} of $G$, denoted by $α_{k-reg}(G)$, is defined as the maximum cardinality of a $k$-independent set o…
An oriented graph $G^σ$ is a digraph without loops or multiple arcs whose underlying graph is $G$. Let $S\left(G^σ\right)$ be the skew-adjacency matrix of $G^σ$ and $α(G)$ be the independence number of $G$. The rank of $S(G^σ)$ is called the skew-rank of $G^σ$, denoted by $sr(G^σ)$. Wong et al. [European J. Combin. 54 (2016) 76-86] studied the relationship between the skew-rank of an oriented graph and the rank of its underlying graph. In this paper, the correlation involving the skew-rank, the independence number, and some other parameters are considered. First we show that $sr(G^σ)+2α(G)\geq…
The independence number of a hypergraph H is the size of a largest set of vertices containing no edge of H. In this paper, we prove new sharp bounds on the independence number of n-vertex (r+1)-uniform hypergraphs in which every r-element set is contained in at most d edges, where 0 < d < n/(log n)^{3r^2}. Our relatively short proof extends a method due to Shearer. We give an application to hypergraph Ramsey numbers involving independent neighborhoods.
A broadcast on a nontrivial connected graph G is a function f from the vertices of G to the non-negative integers such that f(v) does not exceed e(v) (the eccentricity of v) for each vertex v. If G is disconnected, we define a broadcast on G as the union of broadcasts on its components. In a search for the best way to generalise the concept of independent sets in graphs to independent broadcasts, there are several ways to look at an independent set X of a graph G. One way is from the point of view of the vertices in X: no two vertices are adjacent -- the usual definition. Another way is from t…
For a (molecular) graph, the first multiplicative Zagreb index $\prod_1(G) $ is the product of the square of every vertex degree, and the second multiplicative Zagreb index $\prod_2(G) $ is the product of the products of degrees of pairs of adjacent vertices. In this paper, we explore graphs in terms of (edge) connectivity. The maximum and minimum values of $\prod_1(G) $ and $\prod_2(G) $ of graphs with connectivity at most $k$ are provided. In addition, the corresponding extremal graphs are characterized, and our results extend and enrich some known conclusions.
Let $G$ be an edge-colored connected graph. A path of $G$ is called rainbow if its every edge is colored by a distinct color. $G$ is called rainbow connected if there exists a rainbow path between every two vertices of $G$. The minimum number of colors that are needed to make $G$ rainbow connected is called the rainbow connection number of $G$, denoted by $rc(G)$. In this paper, we investigate the relation between the rainbow connection number and the independence number of a graph. We show that if $G$ is a connected graph, then $rc(G)\leq 2α(G)-1$. Two examples $G$ are given to show that the …
The first multiplicative Zagreb index of a graph $G$ is the product of the square of every vertex degree, while the second multiplicative Zagreb index is the product of the degree of each edge over all edges. In our work, we explore the multiplicative Zagreb indices of bipartite graphs of order $n$ with diameter $d$, and sharp upper bounds are obtained for these indices of graphs in $\mathcal{B}(n,d)$, where $\mathcal{B}(n, d)$ is the set of all $n$-vertex bipartite graphs with the diameter $d$. In addition, we explore the relationship between the maximal multiplicative Zagreb indices of graph…
Delete the edges of a Kneser graph independently of each other with some probability: for what probabilities is the independence number of this random graph equal to the independence number of the Kneser graph itself? We prove a sharp threshold result for this question in certain regimes. Since an independent set in the Kneser graph is the same as a uniform intersecting family, this gives us a random analogue of the Erdős-Ko-Rado theorem.
A broadcast on a nontrivial connected graph G is a function f from V(G) to the set {0,1,...,diam(G)} such that f(v) is at most the eccentricity of v for all vertices v of G. The weight of f is the sum of the function values over V(G). A vertex u hears f from v if f(v) is positive and u is within distance f(v) from v. A broadcast f is boundary independent if any vertex that hears f from two or more vertices is at distance f(v) from each such vertex v. The maximum weight of a boundary independent broadcast on G is denoted by α_{bn}(G). We prove a sharp lower bound on α_{bn}(T) for a tree T. Comb…
Let $H$ be an $h$-vertex graph. The vertex arboricity $ar(H)$ of $H$ is the least integer $r$ such that $V(H)$ can be partitioned into $r$ parts and each part induces a forest in $H$. We show that for sufficiently large $n\in h\mathbb{N}$, every $n$-vertex graph $G$ with $δ(G)\geq \max\left\{\left(1-\frac{2}{f(H)}+o(1)\right)n, \left(\frac{1}{2}+o(1)\right)n\right\}$ and $α(G)=o(n)$ contains an $H$-factor, where $f(H)=2ar(H)$ or $2ar(H)-1$. The result can be viewed an analogue of the Alon--Yuster theorem \cite{MR1376050} in Ramsey--Turán theory, which generalises the results of Balogh--Molla--…
