A minimum feedback arc set of a directed graph $G$ is a smallest set of arcs whose removal makes $G$ acyclic. Its cardinality is denoted by $β(G)$. We show that an Eulerian digraph with $n$ vertices and $m$ arcs has $β(G) \ge m^2/2n^2+m/2n$, and this bound is optimal for infinitely many $m, n$. Using this result we prove that an Eulerian digraph contains a cycle of length at most $6n^2/m$, and has an Eulerian subgraph with minimum degree at least $m^2/24n^3$. Both estimates are tight up to a constant factor. Finally, motivated by a conjecture of Bollobás and Scott, we also show how to find long cycles in Eulerian digraphs.
A digraph $G$ \emph{immerses} a digraph $H$ if there is an injection $f : V(H) \to V(G)$ and a collection of pairwise edge-disjoint directed paths $P_{uv}$, for $uv \in E(H)$, such that $P_{uv}$ starts at $u$ and ends at $v$. We prove that every Eulerian digraph with minimum out-degree $t$ immerses a complete digraph on $Ω(t)$ vertices, thus answering a question of DeVos, Mcdonald, Mohar, and Scheide.
The spectra of digraphs, unlike those of graphs, is a relatively unexplored territory. In a digraph, a separation is a pair of sets of vertices X and Y such that there are no arcs from X and Y . For a subclass of eulerian digraphs, we give an bound on the size of a separation in terms of the eigenvalues of the Laplacian matrix.
Long Paths and Cycles in eulerian digraphs have gotten a lot of attention recently. In this short note, we show how to use methods from Knierim, Larcher, Martinsson, Noever (2021) to find paths of length $d/(\log d+1)$ in Eulerian digraphs with average degree $d$, improving the recent result of $Ω(d^{1/2+1/40})$. Our result is optimal up to at most a logarithmic factor.
Minimal obstructions for embedding 4-regular Eulerian digraphs on the plane are considered in relation to the partial order defined by the cycle removal operation. Their basic properties are provided and all obstructions with parallel arcs are classified.
We give two combinatorial proofs of the fact that the number of loopless digraphs on the vertex set $[n]$ with no isolated vertices and with exactly one Eulerian tour up to a cyclic shift is $\frac{1}{2}(n-1)!C_{n}$, where $C_{n}$ denotes the $n$-th Catalan number. We construct a bijection with a set of labeled rooted plane trees and with a set of valid parenthesis arrangements.
An old conjecture of Bollobás and Scott asserts that every Eulerian directed graph with average degree $d$ contains a directed cycle of length at least $Ω(d)$. The best known lower bound for this problem is $Ω(d^{1/2})$ by Huang, Ma, Shapira, Sudakov and Yuster. They asked whether this estimate can be improved at least for directed paths instead of cycles and whether one can find a long path starting from any vertex if the host digraph is connected. In this paper we break the $\sqrt{d}$ barrier, showing how to find a path of length $Ω(d^{1/2+1/40})$ from any vertex of a connected Eulerian digr…
The Second Neighborhood Conjecture states that every simple digraph has a vertex whose second out-neighborhood is at least as large as its first out-neighborhood, i.e. a vertex with the Second Neighborhood Property. A cycle intersection graph of an even graph is a new graph whose vertices are the cycles in a cycle decomposition of the original graph and whose edges represent vertex intersections of the cycles. By using a digraph variant of this concept, we prove that Eulerian digraphs which admit a simple cycle intersection graph have not only adhere to the Second Neighborhood Conjecture, but …
The main goal of this work is to establish a bijection between Dyck words and a family of Eulerian digraphs. We do so by providing two algorithms implementing such bijection in both directions. The connection between Dyck words and Eulerian digraphs exploits a novel combinatorial structure: a binary matrix, we call Dyck matrix, representing the cycles of an Eulerian digraph.
An arc colored eulerian multidigraph with $l$ colors is rainbow eulerian if there is an eulerian circuit in which a sequence of $l$ colors repeats. The digraph product that refers the title was introduced by Figueroa-Centeno et al. as follows: let $D$ be a digraph and let $Γ$ be a family of digraphs such that $V(F)=V$ for every $F\in Γ$. Consider any function $h:E(D)\longrightarrowΓ$. Then the product $D\otimes_{h} Γ$ is the digraph with vertex set $V(D)\times V$ and $((a,x),(b,y))\in E(D\otimes_{h}Γ)$ if and only if $ (a,b)\in E(D)$ and $ (x,y)\in E(h (a,b))$. In this paper we use rainbow eul…
The Chip-firing game is a discrete dynamical system played on a graph, in which chips move along edges according to a simple local rule. Properties of the underlying graph are of course useful to the understanding of the game, but since a conjecture of Biggs that was proved by Merino López, we also know that the study of the Chip-firing game can give insights on the graph. In particular, a strong relation between the partial Tutte polynomial $T_G(1,y)$ and the set of recurrent configurations of a Chip-firing game (with a distinguished sink vertex) has been established for undirected graphs. A …
A digraph is eulerian if it is connected and every vertex has its in-degree equal to its out-degree. Having a spanning eulerian subdigraph is thus a weakening of having a hamiltonian cycle. In this paper, we first characterize the pairs $(D,a)$ of a semicomplete digraph $D$ and an arc $a$ such that $D$ has a spanning eulerian subdigraph containing $a$. In particular, we show that if $D$ is $2$-arc-strong, then every arc is contained in a spanning eulerian subdigraph. We then characterize the pairs $(D,a)$ of a semicomplete digraph $D$ and an arc $a$ such that $D$ has a spanning eulerian subdig…
We consider the problem of immersing the complete digraph on t vertices in a simple digraph. For Eulerian digraphs, we show that such an immersion always exists whenever minimum degree is at least t(t-1), and for t at most 4 minimum degree at least t-1 suffices. On the other hand, we show that there exist non-Eulerian digraphs with all vertices of arbitrarily high in- and outdegree which do not contain an immersion of the complete digraph on 3 vertices. As a side result, we obtain a construction of digraphs with large outdegree in which all cycles have odd length, simplifying a former construc…
A digraph is {\bf eulerian} if it is connected and every vertex has its in-degree equal to its out-degree. Having a spanning eulerian subdigraph is thus a weakening of having a hamiltonian cycle. A digraph is {\bf semicomplete} if it has no pair of non-adjacent vertices. A {\bf tournament} is a semicomplete digraph without directed cycles of length 2. Fraise and Thomassen \cite{fraisseGC3} proved that every $(k+1)$-strong tournament has a hamiltonian cycle which avoids any prescribed set of $k$ arcs. In \cite{bangsupereuler} the authors demonstrated that a number of results concerning vertex-c…
Let $\mathcal{G}$ be a properly face 2-coloured (say black and white) \break piecewise-linear triangulation of the sphere with vertex set $V$. Consider the abelian group $\mathcal{A}_W$ generated by the set $V$, with relations $r+c+s=0$ for all white triangles with vertices $r$, $c$ and $s$. The group $\mathcal{A}_B$ can be defined similarly, using black triangles. These groups are related in the following manner $\mathcal{A}_W\cong\mathcal{A}_B\cong\mathbb{Z}\oplus\mathbb{Z}\oplus\mathcal{C}$ where $\mathcal{C}$ is a finite abelian group. The finite torsion subgroup $\mathcal{C}$ is referred …
Let $X$ be a lazy random walk on a graph $G$. If $G$ is undirected, then the mixing time is upper bounded by the maximum hitting time of the graph. This fails for directed chains, as the biased random walk on the cycle $\mathbb{Z}_n$ shows. However, we establish that for Eulerian digraphs, the mixing time is $O(mn)$, where $m$ is the number of edges and $n$ is the number of vertices. In the reversible case, the mixing time is robust to the change of the laziness parameter. Surprisingly, in the directed setting the mixing time can be sensitive to such changes. We also study exploration and cove…
We generalize chain enumeration in graded partially ordered sets by relaxing the graded, poset and Eulerian requirements. The resulting balanced digraphs, which include the classical Eulerian posets having an $R$-labeling, imply the existence of the (non-homogeneous) ${\bf cd}$-index, a key invariant for studying inequalities for the flag vector of polytopes. Mirroring Alexander duality for Eulerian posets, we show an analogue of Alexander duality for balanced digraphs. For Bruhat graphs of Coxeter groups, an important family of balanced graphs, our theory gives elementary proofs of the existe…
In this paper, we study the complexity of the chip-firing reachability problem. We show that for Eulerian digraphs, the reachability problem can be decided in strongly polynomial time, even if the digraph has multiple edges. We also show a special case when the reachability problem can be decided in polynomial time for general digraphs: if the target distribution is recurrent restricted to each strongly connected component. As a further positive result, we show that the chip-firing reachability problem is in co-NP for general digraphs. We also show that the chip-firing halting problem is in co…
Baker and Norine introduced a graph-theoretic analogue of the Riemann-Roch theory. A central notion in this theory is the rank of a divisor. In this paper we prove that computing the rank of a divisor on a graph is NP-hard. The determination of the rank of a divisor can be translated to a question about a chip-firing game on the same underlying graph. We prove the NP-hardness of this question by relating chip-firing on directed and undirected graphs.
In this paper, we study two types of strong subgraph packing problems in digraphs, including internally disjoint strong subgraph packing problem and arc-disjoint strong subgraph packing problem. These problems can be viewed as generalizations of the famous Steiner tree packing problem and are closely related to the strong arc decomposition problem. We first prove the NP-completeness for the internally disjoint strong subgraph packing problem restricted to symmetric digraphs and Eulerian digraphs. Then we get inapproximability results for the arc-disjoint strong subgraph packing problem and the…
In a series of three papers we develop an end space theory for digraphs. Here in the second paper we introduce the topological space $|D|$ formed by a digraph $D$ together with its ends and limit edges. We then characterise those digraphs that are compactified by this space. Furthermore, we show that if $|D|$ is compact, it is the inverse limit of finite contraction minors of $D$. To illustrate the use of this we extend to the space $|D|$ two statements about finite digraphs that do not generalise verbatim to infinite digraphs. The first statement is the characterisation of finite Eulerian dig…
Hajós conjectured in 1968 that every Eulerian \(n\)-vertex graph can be decomposed into at most $\lfloor (n-1)/2\rfloor$ edge-disjoint cycles. This has been confirmed for some special graph classes, but the general case remains open. In a sequence of papers by Bienia and Meyniel (1986), Dean (1986), and Bollobás and Scott (1996) it was analogously conjectured that every \emph{directed} Eulerian graph can be decomposed into $O(n)$ cycles. In this paper, we show that every directed Eulerian graph can be decomposed into $O(n \log Δ)$ disjoint cycles, thus making progress towards the conjecture by…
Given an Eulerian digraph, we consider the genus distribution of its face-oriented embeddings. We prove that such distribution is log-concave for two families of Eulerian digraphs, thus giving a positive answer for these families to a question asked in Bonnington, Conder, Morton and McKenna (2002). Our proof uses real-rooted polynomials and the representation theory of the symmetric group $\mathbb{S}_n$. The result is also extended to some factorizations of the identity in $\mathbb{S}_n$ that are rotation systems of some families of one-face constellations.
For a digraph $D=(V(D), A(D))$, and a set $S\subseteq V(D)$ with $r\in S$ and $|S|\geq 2$, an $(S, r)$-tree is an out-tree $T$ rooted at $r$ with $S\subseteq V(T)$. Two $(S, r)$-trees $T_1$ and $T_2$ are said to be arc-disjoint if $A(T_1)\cap A(T_2)=\emptyset$. Two arc-disjoint $(S, r)$-trees $T_1$ and $T_2$ are said to be internally disjoint if $V(T_1)\cap V(T_2)=S$. Let $κ_{S,r}(D)$ and $λ_{S,r}(D)$ be the maximum number of internally disjoint and arc-disjoint $(S, r)$-trees in $D$, respectively. The generalized $k$-vertex-strong connectivity of $D$ is defined as $$κ_k(D)= \min \{κ_{S,r}(D)\…
Arc-locally semicomplete and arc-locally in-semicomplete digraphs were introduced by Bang-Jensen as a common generalization of both semicomplete and semicomplete bipartite digraphs in 1993. Later, Bang-Jensen (2004), Galeana-Sanchez and Goldfeder (2009) and Wang and Wang (2009) provided a characterization of strong arc-locally semicomplete digraphs. In 2009, Wang and Wang characterized strong arc-locally in-semicomplete digraphs. In 2012, Galeana-Sanchez and Goldfeder provided a characterization of all arc-locally semicomplete digraphs which generalizes some results by Bang-Jensen. In this pap…
We study vertex-quasiprimitive $2$-arc-transitive digraphs, reducing the problem of vertex-primitive $2$-arc-transitive digraphs to almost simple groups. This includes a complete classification of vertex-quasiprimitive $2$-arc-transitive digraphs where the action on vertices has O'Nan-Scott type SD or CD.
Catch digraphs was introduced by Hiroshi Maehara in 1984 as an analog of intersection graphs where a family of pointed sets represents a digraph. After that Prisner continued his research particularly on interval catch digraphs by characterizing them diasteroidal triple free. It has numerous applications in the field of real world problems like network technology and telecommunication operations. Recently, we characterized three important subclasses of interval catch digraphs. In this article we introduce a new class of catch digraphs, namely circular-arc catch digraphs. The definition is same…
We introduce a construction of highly arc transitive digraphs using a layerwise direct product. This product generalizes some known classes of highly arc transitive digraphs but also allows to construct new such. We use the product to obtain counterexamples to a conjecture by Cameron, Praeger and Wormald on the structure of certain highly arc transitive digraphs.
We resolve two problems of [Cameron, Praeger, and Wormald -- Infinite highly arc transitive digraphs and universal covering digraphs, Combinatorica 1993]. First, we construct a locally finite highly arc-transitive digraph with universal reachability relation. Second, we provide constructions of 2-ended highly arc transitive digraphs where each `building block' is a finite bipartite graph that is not a disjoint union of complete bipartite graphs. This was conjectured impossible in the above paper. We also describe the structure of 2-ended highly arc transitive digraphs in more generality, altho…
We study $G$-vertex-primitive and $(G,s)$-arc-transitive digraphs for almost simple groups $G$ with socle $\mathrm{PSL}_n(q)$. It turns out that $s\leqslant2$ for such digraphs, which provides the first step in determining an upper bound on $s$ for all the vertex-primitive $s$-arc-transitive digraphs.
A digraph X=(V, E) is max-λ, if λ(X)=δ(X). A digraph X is super-λif every minimum cut of X is either the set of inarcs of some vertex or the set of outarcs of some vertex. In this paper, we will prove that for all but a few exceptions, the strongly connected mixed Cayley digraphs are max-λand super-λ.
In 2017, Giudici, Li and the third author constructed the first known family of vertex-primitive $2$-arc-transitive digraphs of valency at least $2$. The smallest digraph in this family admits $\mathrm{PSL}_3(49)$ acting $2$-arc-transitively with vertex-stabilizer $\mathrm{A}_6$ and hence has $30758154560$ vertices. In this paper, we prove that this digraph is the vertex-primitive $2$-arc-transitive digraph of valency at least $2$ with fewest vertices.
A detailed description of the structure of two-ended arc-transitive digraphs is given. It is also shown that several sets of conditions, involving such concepts as Property Z, local quasi-primitivity and prime out-valency, imply that an arc-transitive digraph must be highly-arc-transitive. These are then applied to give a complete classification of two-ended highly-arc-transitive digraphs with prime in- and out-valencies.
This paper presents a sharp upper bound for the spectral radius of simple digraphs with described number of arcs. Further, the extremal graphs which attain the maximum spectral radius among all simple digraphs with fixed arcs are investigated. In particular, we characterize all extremal simple digraphs with the maximum spectral radius among all simple digraphs with arcs number $e=2{k\choose 2}+t$ and $k>4t^4+4$.
A general method for constructing sharply $k$-arc-transitive digraphs, i.e. digraphs that are $k$-arc-transitive but not $(k+1)$-arc-transitive, is presented. Using our method it is possible to construct both finite and infinite examples. The infinite examples can have one, two or infinitely many ends. Among the one-ended examples there are also digraphs that have polynomial growth.
Let X=(V, E) be a digraph. X is maximally connected, if κ(X)=δ(X). X is maximally arc-connected, if λ(X)=δ(X). And X is super arc-connected, if every minimum arc-cut of X is either the set of inarcs of some vertex or the set of outarcs of some vertex. In this paper, we will prove that the strongly connected Bi-Cayley digraphs are maximally connected and maximally arc-connected, and the most of strongly connected Bi-Cayley digraphs are super arc-connected.
Universidade de São Paulo（圣保罗大学）；Universidade Federal do ABC（ABC联邦大学）；Universidad de Chile（智利大学）；University of Chile（智利大学）；Universidad Andres Bello（安德烈斯贝略大学）
A {\em kernel by properly colored paths} of an arc-colored digraph $D$ is a set $S$ of vertices of $D$ such that (i) no two vertices of $S$ are connected by a properly colored directed path in $D$, and (ii) every vertex outside $S$ can reach $S$ by a properly colored directed path in $D$. In this paper, we conjecture that every arc-colored digraph with all cycles properly colored has such a kernel and verify the conjecture for unicyclic digraphs, semi-complete digraphs and bipartite tournaments, respectively. Moreover, weaker conditions for the latter two classes of digraphs are given.
In 2018, Bai, Fujita and Zhang (\emph{Discrete Math.} 2018, 341(6): 1523-1533) introduced the concept of a kernel by rainbow paths (for short, RP-kernel) of an arc-coloured digraph $D$, which is a subset $S$ of vertices of $D$ such that ($a$) there exists no rainbow path for any pair of distinct vertices of $S$, and ($b$) every vertex outside $S$ can reach $S$ by a rainbow path in $D$. They showed that it is NP-hard to recognize wether an arc-coloured digraph has a RP-kernel and it is NP-complete to decided wether an arc-coloured tournament has a RP-kernel. In this paper, we give the sufficien…
Bang-Jensen, Bessy, Havet and Yeo showed that every digraph of independence number at most 2 and arc-connectivity at least 2 has an out-branching $B^+$ and an in-branching $B^-$ which are arc-disjoint (such two branchings are called a {\it good pair}), which settled a conjecture of Thomassen for digraphs of independence number 2. They also proved that every digraph on at most 6 vertices and arc-connectivity at least 2 has a good pair and gave an example of a 2-arc-strong digraph $D$ on 10 vertices with independence number 4 that has no good pair. They asked for the smallest number $n$ of verti…
We prove that every digraph of independence number at most 2 and arc-connectivity at least 2 has an out-branching $B^+$ and an in-branching $B^-$ which are arc-disjoint (we call such branchings good pair). This is best possible in terms of the arc-connectivity as there are infinitely many strong digraphs with independence number 2 and arbitrarily high minimum in-and out-degrees that have good no pair. The result settles a conjecture by Thomassen for digraphs of independence number 2. We prove that every digraph on at most 6 vertices and arc-connectivity at least 2 has a good pair and give an e…
A complete list of all connected arc-transitive asymmetric digraphs of in-valence and out-valence 2 on up to 1000 vertices is presented. As a byproduct, a complete list of all connected 4-valent graphs admitting a half-arc-transitive group of automorphisms on up to 1000 vertices is obtained. Several graph-theoretical properties of the elements of our census are calculated and discussed.
In this paper, we classify all commutative weakly distance-regular digraphs of girth $g$ and one type of arcs under the assumption that $p_{(1,g-1),(1,g-1)}^{(2,g-2)}\geq k_{1,g-1}-2$. In consequence, we recover [13, Theorem 1.1] as a special case of our result.
An antidirected trail in a digraph is a trail (a walk with no arc repeated) in which the arcs alternate between forward and backward arcs. An antidirected path is an antidirected trail where no vertex is repeated. We show that it is NP-complete to decide whether two vertices $x,y$ in a digraph are connected by an antidirected path, while one can decide in linear time whether they are connected by an antidirected trail. A digraph $D$ is antistrong if it contains an antidirected $(x,y)$-trail starting and ending with a forward arc for every choice of $x,y\in V(D)$. We show that antistrong connec…
