In 1962 Pósa conjectured that every graph G on n vertices with minimum degree at least 2n/3 contains the square of a hamiltonian cycle. In 1996 Fan and Kierstead proved the path version of Pósa's Conjecture. They also proved that it would suffice to show that G contains the square of a cycle of length greater than 2n/3. Still in 1996, Komlós, Sárközy, and Szemerédi proved Pósa's Conjecture, using the Regularity and Blow-up Lemmas, for graphs of order n > n_0, where n_0 is a very large constant. Here we show without using these lemmas that n_0=2\times 10^8 is sufficient. We are motivated by the recent work of Levitt, Szemerédi and Sárközy, but our methods are based on techniques that were available in the 90's.
In 2008, Vallentin made a conjecture involving the least distortion of an embedding of a distance-regular graph into Euclidean space. Vallentin's conjecture implies that for a least distortion Euclidean embedding of a distance-regular graph of diameter $d$, the most contracted pairs of vertices are those at distance $d$. In this paper, we confirm Vallentin's conjecture for several families of distance-regular graphs. We also provide counterexamples to this conjecture, where the largest contraction occurs between pairs of vertices at distance $d{-}1$. We suggest three alternative conjectures an…
Frankl's union-closed sets conjecture states that in every finite union-closed set of sets, there is an element that is contained in at least half of the member-sets (provided there are at least two members). The conjecture has an equivalent formulation in terms of graphs: In every bipartite graph with least one edge, both colour classes contain a vertex belonging to at most half of the maximal stable sets. We prove that, for every fixed edge-probability, almost every random bipartite graph almost satisfies Frankl's conjecture.
For a 2-connected graph $G$ on $n$ vertices and two vertices $x,y\in V(G)$, we prove that there is an $(x,y)$-path of length at least $k$ if there are at least $\frac{n-1}{2}$ vertices in $V(G)\backslash \{x,y\}$ of degree at least $k$. This strengthens a well-known theorem due to Erdős and Gallai in 1959. As the first application of this result, we show that a 2-connected graph with $n$ vertices contains a cycle of length at least $2k$ if it has at least $\frac{n}{2}+k$ vertices of degree at least $k$. This confirms a 1975 conjecture made by Woodall. As another applications, we obtain some re…
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.
Answering a question of Häggkvist and Scott, Verstraëte proved that every sufficiently large graph with average degree at least $k^2+19k+10$ contains $k$ vertex-disjoint cycles of consecutive even lengths. He further conjectured that the same holds for every graph $G$ with average degree at least $k^2+3k+2$. In this paper we prove this conjecture for $k\geq 19$ when $G$ is sufficiently large. We also show that for any $ε>0$ and large $k\geq k_ε$, average degree at least $k^2+3k-2+ε$ suffices, which is asymptotically tight for infinitely many graphs.
Two graphs $G_1$ and $G_2$ on $n$ vertices are said to \textit{pack} if there exist injective mappings of their vertex sets into $[n]$ such that the images of their edge sets are disjoint. A longstanding conjecture due to Bollobás and Eldridge and, independently, Catlin, asserts that, if $(Δ(G_1)+1) (Δ(G_2)+1) \le n+1$, then $G_1$ and $G_2$ pack. We consider the validity of this assertion under the additional assumptions that neither $G_1$ nor $G_2$ contain a $4$-, $6$- or $8$-cycle, and that $Δ(G_1)$ or $Δ(G_2)$ is large enough ($\ge 940060$).
Seymour's Second-Neighborhood Conjecture states that every directed graph whose underlying graph is simple has at least one vertex $v$ such that the number of vertices of out-distance $2$ from $v$ is at least as large as the number of vertices of out-distance $1$ from it. We present alternative statements of the conjecture in the language of linear algebra.
We conjecture a new lower bound on the algebraic connectivity of a graph that involves the number of vertices of high eccentricity in a graph. We prove that this lower bound implies a strengthening of the Laplacian Spread Conjecture. We discuss further conjectures, also strengthening the Laplacian Spread Conjecture, that include a conjecture for simple graphs and a conjecture for weighted graphs.
An \emph{equitable coloring} of a graph is a proper vertex coloring such that the sizes of every two color classes differ by at most 1. Chen, Lih, and Wu conjectured that every connected graph $G$ with maximum degree $Δ\geq 2$ has an equitable coloring with $Δ$ colors, except when $G$ is a complete graph or an odd cycle or $Δ$ is odd and $G=K_{Δ,Δ}.$ Nakprasit proved the conjecture holds for planar graphs with maximum degree at least 9. Zhu and Bu proved that the conjecture holds for every $C_3$-free planar graph with maximum degree at least 8 and for every planar graph without $C_4$ and $C_5$…
Scott conjectured that the class of graphs with no induced subdivision of a given graph is $χ$-bounded. We verify his conjecture for maximal triangle-free graphs.
We construct an infinite family of counterexamples to Thomassen's conjecture that the vertices of every 3-connected, cubic graph on at least 8 vertices can be colored blue and red such that the blue subgraph has maximum degree at most 1 and the red subgraph minimum degree at least 1 and contains no path on 4 vertices.
Let $G$ be a $k$-connected graph on $n$ vertices. Hippchen's Conjecture states that two longest paths in $G$ share at least $k$ vertices. Gutiérrez recently proved the conjecture when $k\leq 4$ or $k\geq \frac{n-2}{3}$. We improve upon both results; namely, we show that two longest paths in $G$ share at least $k$ vertices when $k=5$ or $k\geq \frac{n+2}{5}$. This completely resolves two conjectures of Gutiérrez in the affirmative.
In this paper we proof that any cactus graph satisfies graph complement conjecture by finding a orthogonal representation of its complement in $\mathbb{R}^5$.
In 2014, Payne-Wood proved that every non-collinear set $P$ of $n$ points in the Euclidean plane contains a point in at least $\dfrac{n}{37}$ lines determined by $P.$ This is a remarkable answer for the conjecture, which was proposed by Erdős, that every non-collinear set $P$ of $n$ points contains a point in at least $\dfrac{n}{c_1}$ lines determined by $P$, for some constant $c_1.$ In this article, we refine the result of Payne-Wood to give that every non-collinear set $P$ of $n$ points contains a point in at least $\dfrac{n}{26}+2$ lines determined by $P$ . Moreover, we also discuss some re…
Erdős, Faudree, Rousseau and Schelp observed the following fact for every fixed integer $k\geq 2$: Every graph on $n\geq k-1$ vertices with at least $(k-1)(n-k+2)+{k-2\choose 2}$ edges contains a subgraph with minimum degree at least $k$. However, there are examples in which the whole graph is the only such subgraph. Erdős et al. conjectured that having just one more edge implies the existence of a subgraph on at most $(1-\varepsilon_k)n$ vertices with minimum degree at least $k$, where $\varepsilon_k>0$ depends only on $k$. We prove this conjecture, using and extending ideas of Mousset, Noeve…
Erdős conjectured that every triangle-free graph $G$ on $n$ vertices contains a set of $\lfloor n/2 \rfloor$ vertices that spans at most $n^2 /50$ edges. Krivelevich proved the conjecture for graphs with minimum degree at least $\frac{2}{5}n$. Keevash and Sudakov improved this result to graphs with average degree at least $\frac{2}{5}n$. We strengthen these results by showing that the conjecture holds for graphs with minimum degree at least $\frac{5}{14}n$ and for graphs with average degree at least $(\frac{2}{5} - \varepsilon)n$ for some absolute $\varepsilon >0$. Moreover, we show that the c…
The union-closed sets conjecture states that if a family of sets $\mathcal{A} \neq \{\emptyset\}$ is union-closed, then there is an element which belongs to at least half the sets in $\mathcal{A}$. In 2001, D. Reimer showed that the average set size of a union-closed family, $\mathcal{A}$, is at least $\frac{1}{2} \log_2 |\mathcal{A}|$. In order to do so, he showed that all union-closed families satisfy a particular condition, which in turn implies the preceding bound. Here, answering a question raised in the context of T. Gowers' polymath project on the union-closed sets conjecture, we show t…
Fullerene graphs, i.e., 3-connected planar cubic graphs with pentagonal and hexagonal faces, are conjectured to be Hamiltonian. This is a special case of a conjecture of Barnette and Goodey, stating that 3-connected planar graphs with faces of size at most 6 are Hamiltonian. We prove the conjecture.
The Ferrers bound conjecture is a natural graph-theoretic extension of the enumeration of spanning trees for Ferrers graphs. We document the current status of the conjecture and provide a further conjecture which implies it.
Reed Conjecture is open for more than 20 years now. Here we prove that Reed Conjecture is valid for (1) {P4UnionK1, Kite}-free graphs (2) {Chair, Kite}-free graphs (3) {K2UnionK2complement , H}-free graphs and (4) {2K2, M}-free graphs where H and M are graphs on six vertices each. Reed conjecture is still open in general.
A graph is $P_8$-free if it contains no induced subgraph isomorphic to the path $P_8$ on eight vertices. In 1995, Erdős and Gyárfás conjectured that every graph of minimum degree at least three contains a cycle whose length is a power of two. In this paper, we confirm the conjecture for $P_8$-free graphs by showing that there exists a cycle of length four or eight in every $P_8$-free graph with minimum degree at least three.
Tutte's $3$-flow conjecture says that every $4$-edge-connected graph admits a nowhere-zero $3$-flow. Kochol (2001) showed that it is enough to prove this conjecture for $5$-edge-connected graphs. Former, Jaeger, Linial, Payan, and Tarsi (1992) conjectured that every $5$-edge-connected graph is $Z_3$-connected and so it admits a nowhere-zero $3$-flow. In this note, we show that if the second conjecture would be true, then every $3$-tree-connected graph must also be $Z_3$-connected and so Tutte's $3$-flow conjecture can be extended to this family of graphs.
Loebl, Komlos, and Sos conjectured that if at least half the vertices of a graph G have degree at least some k, then every tree with at most k edges is a subgraph of G. We prove the conjecture for all trees of diameter at most 5 and for a class of caterpillars. Our result implies a bound on the Ramsey number r(T,F) of trees T, F from the above classes.
A connected $n$-chromatic graph $G$ is double-critical if for all the edges $xy$ of $G$, the graph $G-x-y$ is $(n-2)$-chromatic. In 1966, Erd\H os and Lovász conjectured that the only double-critical $n$-chromatic graph is $K_n$. This conjecture remains unresolved for $n \ge 6.$ In this short note, we verify this conjecture for claw-free graphs $G$ of chromatic number $6$.
Merker conjectured that if $k \ge 2$ is an integer and $G$ a 3-connected cubic planar graph of circumference at least $k$, then the set of cycle lengths of $G$ must contain at least one element of the interval $[k, 2k+2]$. We here prove that for every even integer $k \ge 6$ there is an infinite family of counterexamples.
Hoffmann-Ostenhof's Conjecture states that states that the edge set of every connected cubic graph can be decomposed into a spanning tree, a matching and a $2$-regular subgraph. In this paper, we show that the conjecture holds for claw-free cubic graphs.
The Merino-Welsh conjecture asserts that the number of spanning trees of a graph is no greater than the maximum of the numbers of totally cyclic orientations and acyclic orientations of that graph. We prove this conjecture for the class of series-parallel graphs.
Borodin & Kostochka conjectured that if maximum degree of a graph is greater than or equal to 9, then the chromatic number of the graph is less than or equal to maximum of ω and maximum degree minus 1. Here we prove that this Conjecture is true for {P3 UNION K1}-free graphs and {K2 UNION complement of K2}-free graphs.
Here we prove that Reed Conjecture is valid for {P5, Flag_Complement}-free graphs where FlagComplement is the complement of the Flag graph. Some of the known results follow as corollaries to our result. Reed conjecture is still open in general.
We initiate a systematic study of the fractional vertex-arboricity of planar graphs and demonstrate connections to open problems concerning both fractional coloring and the size of the largest induced forest in planar graphs. In particular, the following three long-standing conjectures concern the size of a largest induced forest in a planar graph, and we conjecture that each of these can be generalized to the setting of fractional vertex-arboricity. In 1979, Albertson and Berman conjectured that every planar graph has an induced forest on at least half of its vertices, in 1987, Akiyama and Wa…
Seymour's Second Neighborhood Conjecture (SNC) asserts that every oriented graph has a vertex whose first out-neighborhood is at most as large as its second out-neighborhood. In this paper, we prove that if $G$ is a graph containing no induced $C_4$, $\overline{C_4}$, $S_3$, chair and $\overline{chair}$, then every oriented graph missing $G$ satisfies this conjecture. As a consequence, we deduce that the conjecture holds for every oriented graph missing a threshold graph, a generalized comb or a star.
Bollobás and Riordan, in their paper "Metrics for sparse graphs," proposed a number of provocative conjectures extending central results of quasirandom graphs and graph limits to sparse graphs. We refute these conjectures by exhibiting a sequence of graphs with convergent normalized subgraph densities (and pseudorandom $C_4$-counts), but with no limit expressible as a kernel.
Hajós' conjecture states that an Eulerian graph of order n can be decomposed into at most (n-1)/2 edge-disjoint cycles. We describe preprocessing steps, heuristics and integer programming techniques that enable us to verify Hajós' conjecture for all Eulerian graphs with up to twelve nodes.
The famous Gallai's Conjecture states that any connected graph with n vertices has a path decomposition containing at most (n+1)/2 paths. In this note, we explore graphs generated from removing edges from complete graphs. We first provide an explicit construction for a path decomposition of complete graphs that satisfies Gallai's Conjecture. We then use that construction to prove that we can remove stars and certain tadpoles such that the resulting graph still satisfies Gallai's Conjecture. We also introduce a potential general approach through analyzing non-isomorphic path decompositions of c…
We conjecture that every $n$-vertex graph of minimum degree at least $\frac k2$ and maximum degree at least $2k$ contains all trees with $k$ edges as subgraphs. We prove an approximate version of this conjecture for trees of bounded degree and dense host graphs. Our work also has implications on the Erd\H os--Sós conjecture and the $\frac 23$-conjecture. We prove an approximate version of both conjectures for bounded degree trees and dense host graphs.
In 1968, Erdös and Lovász conjectured that for every graph $G$ and all integers $s,t\geq 2$ such that $s+t-1=χ(G) > ω(G)$, there exists a partition $(S,T)$ of the vertex set of $G$ such that $χ(G|S)\geq s$ and $χ(G|T)\geq t$. For general graphs, the only settled cases of the conjecture are when $s$ and $t$ are small. Recently, the conjecture was proved for a few special classes of graphs: graphs with stability number 2 \cite{quasi-line}, line graphs \cite{line} and quasi-line graphs \cite{quasi-line}. In this paper, we consider the conjecture for claw-free graphs and present some progress on i…
We apply the Discharging Method to prove the 1,2,3-Conjecture and the 1,2-Conjecture for graphs with maximum average degree less than 8/3. Stronger results on these conjectures have been proved, but this is the first application of discharging to them, and the structure theorems and reducibility results are of independent interest.
If $G$ is a simple graph and $ρ\in[0,1]$, the reliability $R_G(ρ)$ is the probability of $G$ being connected after each of its edges is removed independently with probability $ρ$. A simple graph $G$ is a \emph{uniformly most reliable graph} (UMRG) if $R_G(ρ)\geq R_H(ρ)$ for every $ρ\in[0,1]$ and every simple graph $H$ on the same number of vertices and edges as $G$. Boesch [J.\ Graph Theory 10 (1986), 339--352] conjectured that, if $n$ and $m$ are such that there exists a connected simple graph on $n$ vertices and $m$ edges, then there also exists a UMRG on the same number of vertices and edge…
The Erdős-Gyárfás conjecture states that every graph with minimum degree at least three has a cycle whose length is a power of 2. Since this conjecture has proven to be far from reach, Hobbs asked if the Erdős-Gyárfás conjecture holds in claw-free graphs. In this paper, we obtain some results on this question, in particular for cubic claw-free graphs.
Let $A_n$ be the anti-regular graph of order $n.$ It was conjectured that among all threshold graphs on $n$ vertices, $A_n$ has the smallest positive eigenvalue and the largest eigenvalue less than $-1.$ Recently, in \cite{Cesar2} was given partial results for this conjecture and identified the critical cases where a more refined method is needed. In this paper, we deal with these cases and confirm that conjecture holds.
We prove that any quasirandom graph with $n$ vertices and $rn$ edges can be decomposed into $n$ copies of any fixed tree with $r$ edges. The case of decomposing a complete graph establishes a conjecture of Ringel from 1963.
Circular arc graphs are graphs whose vertices can be represented as arcs on a circle such that any two vertices are adjacent if and only if their corresponding arcs intersect. Proper circular arc graphs are graphs which have a circular arc representation where no arc is completely contained in any other arc. Hadwiger's conjecture states that if a graph $G$ has chromatic number $k$, then a complete graph of $k$ vertices is a minor of $G$. We prove Hadwiger's conjecture for proper circular arc graphs.
Seymour's Second Neighborhood Conjecture asserts that every oriented graph has a vertex whose first out-neighborhood is at most as large as its second out-neighborhood. Combs are the graphs having no induced $C_4$, $\overline{C_4}$, $C_5$, chair or $\overline{chair}$. We characterize combs using dependency digraphs. We characterize the graphs having no induced $C_4$, $\overline{C_4}$, chair or $\overline{chair}$ using dependency digraphs. Then we prove that every oriented graph missing a comb satisfies this conjecture. We then deduce that every oriented comb and every oriented threshold graph …
Hadwiger's famous coloring conjecture states that every $t$-chromatic graph contains a $K_t$-minor. Holroyd [Bull. London Math. Soc. 29, (1997), pp. 139--144] conjectured the following strengthening of Hadwiger's conjecture: If $G$ is a $t$-chromatic graph and $S \subseteq V(G)$ takes all colors in every $t$-coloring of $G$, then $G$ contains a $K_t$-minor rooted at $S$. We prove this conjecture in the first open case of $t=4$. Notably, our result also directly implies a stronger version of Hadwiger's conjecture for $5$-chromatic graphs as follows: Every $5$-chromatic graph contains a $K_5$-mi…
It is well known that $n/(n - μ)$, where $μ$ is the spectral radius of a graph with $n$ vertices, is a lower bound for the clique number. We conjecture that $μ$ can be replaced in this bound with $\sqrt{s^+}$, where $s^+$ is the sum of the squares of the positive eigenvalues. We prove this conjecture for various classes of graphs, including triangle-free graphs, and for almost all graphs.
In 1979 Frankl conjectured that in a finite non-trivial union-closed collection of sets there has to be an element that belongs to at least half the sets. We show that this is equivalent to the conjecture that in a finite non-trivial graph there are two adjacent vertices each belonging to at most half of the maximal stable sets. In this graph formulation other special cases become natural. The conjecture is trivially true for non-bipartite graphs and we show that it holds also for the classes of chordal bipartite graphs, subcubic bipartite graphs, bipartite series-parallel graphs and bipartiti…
The Laplacian energy of a graph is the sum of the distances of the eigenvalues of the Laplacian matrix of the graph to the graph's average degree. The maximum Laplacian energy over all graphs on $n$ nodes and $m$ edges is conjectured to be attained for threshold graphs. We prove the conjecture to hold for graphs with the property that for each $k$ there is a threshold graph on the same number of nodes and edges whose sum of the $k$ largest Laplacian eigenvalues exceeds that of the $k$ largest Laplacian eigenvalues of the graph. We call such graphs spectrally threshold dominated. These graphs i…
We conjecture that the sum of the square roots of the Laplacian eigenvalues of a graph does not exceed the sum of the square roots of its signless Laplacian eigenvalues.
Loebl, Komlós, and Sós conjectured that any graph with at least half of its vertices of degree at least k contains every tree with at most k edges. We propose a version of this conjecture for skewed trees, i.e., we consider the class of trees with at most k edges such that the sizes of the colour classes of the trees have a given ratio. We show that our conjecture is asymptotically correct for dense graphs. The proof relies on the regularity method. Our result implies bounds on Ramsey number of several trees of given skew.
