From the point of view of optimization, a critical issue is relating the combinatorial diameter of a polyhedron to its number of facets $f$ and dimension $d$. In the seminal paper of Klee and Walkup [KW67], the Hirsch conjecture of an upper bound of $f-d$ was shown to be equivalent to several seemingly simpler statements, and was disproved for unbounded polyhedra through the construction of a particular 4-dimensional polyhedron $U_4$ with 8 facets. The Hirsch bound for bounded polyhedra was only recently disproved by Santos.
We consider analogous properties for a variant of the combinatorial diameter called the circuit diameter. In this variant, the walks are built from the circuit directions of the polyhedron, which are the minimal non-trivial solutions to the system defining the polyhedron.
We are able to prove that circuit variants of the so-called non-revisiting conjecture and $d$-step conjecture both imply the circuit analogue of the Hirsch conjecture. For the equivalences in [KW67], the wedge construction was a fundamental proof technique. We exhibit why it is not available in the circuit setting, and what are the implications of losing it as a tool.
Further, we show the circuit analogue of the non-revisiting conjecture implies a linear bound on the circuit diameter of all unbounded polyhedra - in contrast to what is known for the combinatorial diameter. Finally, we give two proofs of a circuit version of the $4$-step conjecture. These results offer some hope that the circuit version of the Hirsch conjecture may hold in general.
A challenge in the circuit setting is that different realizations of polyhedra of the same combinatorial structure may have different diameters. We adapt the notion of simplicity to work with circuits in the form of C-simple and wedge-simple polyhedra. We show that it suffices to consider such polyhedra.
In this paper we introduce the circuit diameter of polyhedra, which is always bounded from above by the combinatorial diameter. We consider dual transportation polyhedra defined on general bipartite graphs. For complete $M{\times}N$ bipartite graphs the Hirsch bound $(M{-}1)(N{-}1)$ on the combinatorial diameter is a known tight bound (Balinski, 1984). For the circuit diameter we show the much stronger bound $M{+}N{-}2$ for all dual transportation polyhedra defined on arbitrary bipartite graphs with $M{+}N$ nodes.
Consider a variant of the graph diameter of a polyhedron where each step in a walk between two vertices travels maximally in a circuit direction instead of along incident edges. Here circuit directions are non-trivial solutions to minimally-dependent subsystems of the presentation of the polyhedron. These can be understood as the set of all possible edge directions, including edges that may arise from translation of the facets. It is appealing to consider a circuit analogue of the Hirsch conjecture for graph diameter, as suggested by Borgwardt et al. [BFH15]. They ask whether the known counter…
We solve a problem in the combinatorics of polyhedra motivated by the network simplex method. We show that the Hirsch conjecture holds for the diameter of the graphs of all network-flow polytopes, in particular the diameter of a network-flow polytope for a network with $n$ nodes and $m$ arcs is never more than $m+n-1$. A key step to prove this is to show the same result for classical transportation polytopes.
The combinatorial diameter of a polytope $P$ is the maximum value of a shortest path between two vertices of $P$, where the path uses the edges of $P$ only. In contrast to the combinatorial diameter, the circuit diameter of $P$ is defined as the maximum value of a shortest path between two vertices of $P$, where the path uses potential edge directions of $P$ i.e., all edge directions that can arise by translating some of the facets of $P$. In this paper, we study the circuit diameter of polytopes corresponding to classical combinatorial optimization problems, such as the Matching polytope, the…
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.
Recently, in the paper \cite{CJKM1} we suggested the two conjectures about the diameter of io-decomposable Riordan graphs of the Bell type. In this paper, we give a counterexample for the first conjecture. Then we prove that the first conjecture is true for the graphs of some particular size and propose a new conjecture. Finally, we show that the second conjecture is true for some special io-decomposable Riordan graphs.
The study of the graph diameter of polytopes is a classical open problem in polyhedral geometry and the theory of linear optimization. In this paper we continue the investigation initiated in [4] by introducing a vast hierarchy of generalizations to the notion of graph diameter. This hierarchy provides some interesting lower bounds for the usual graph diameter. After explaining the structure of the hierarchy and discussing these bounds, we focus on clearly explaining the differences and similarities among the many diameter notions of our hierarchy. Finally, we fully characterize the hierarchy …
A graph is said to be diameter-$k$-critical if its diameter is $k$ and removal of any of its edges increases its diameter. A beautiful conjecture by Murty and Simon, says that every diameter-2-critical graph of order $n$ has at most $\lfloor n^2/4\rfloor$ edges and equality holds only for $K_{\lceil n/2 \rceil,\lfloor n/2 \rfloor }$. Haynes et al. proved that the conjecture is true for $Δ\geq 0.7n$. They also proved that for $n>2000$, if $Δ\geq 0.6789n$ then the conjecture is true. We will improve this bound by showing that the conjecture is true for every $n$ if $Δ\geq\ 0.676n$.
Both the combinatorial and the circuit diameters of polyhedra are of interest to the theory of linear programming for their intimate connection to a best-case performance of linear programming algorithms. We study the diameters of dual network flow polyhedra associated to $b$-flows on directed graphs $G=(V,E)$ and prove quadratic upper bounds for both of them: the minimum of $(|V|-1)\cdot |E|$ and $\frac{1}{6}|V|^3$ for the combinatorial diameter, and $\frac{|V|\cdot (|V|-1)}{2}$ for the circuit diameter. The latter strengthens the cubic bound implied by a result in [De Loera, Hemmecke, Lee; 2…
Oxley conjectured (1992) that if a matroid has a circuit-cocircuit intersection of size $k\ge4$, it has a circuit-cocircuit intersection of size $k-2$. We show that this conjecture holds for $k\le6$.
The study of the diameter of the graph of polyhedra is a classical problem in the theory of linear programming. While transportation polytopes are at the core of operations research and statistics it is still open whether the Hirsch conjecture is true for general $m{\times}n$--transportation polytopes. In earlier work the first three authors introduced a hierarchy of variations to the notion of graph diameter in polyhedra. The key reason was that this hierarchy provides some interesting lower bounds for the usual graph diameter. This paper has three contributions: First, we compare the hierarc…
A proof of the resistance diameter conjecture for line graphs
School of Mathematical Sciences, Anhui University（安徽大学数学科学学院）；School of Statistics and Applied Mathematics, Anhui University of Finance & Economics（安徽财经大学统计与应用数学学院）
A graph is diameter two edge-critical if its diameter is two and the deletion of any edge increases the diameter. Murty and Simon conjectured that the number of edges in a diameter two edge-critical graph on $n$ vertices is at most $\lfloor \frac{n^{2}}{4} \rfloor$ and the extremal graph is the complete bipartite graph $K_{\lfloor \frac{n}{2} \rfloor, \lceil \frac{n}{2} \rceil}$. In the series papers [8-10], the Murty-Simon Conjecture stated by Haynes et al is not the original conjecture, indeed, it is only for the diameter two edge-critical graphs of even order. Haynes et al proved the conjec…
A graph is called diameter-$k$-critical if its diameter is $k$, and the removal of any edge strictly increases the diameter. In this paper, we prove several results related to a conjecture often attributed to Murty and Simon, regarding the maximum number of edges that any diameter-$k$-critical graph can have. In particular, we disprove a longstanding conjecture of Caccetta and Häggkvist (that in every diameter-2-critical graph, the average edge-degree is at most the number of vertices), which promised to completely solve the extremal problem for diameter-2-critical graphs. On the other hand, w…
We denote by $\text{ex}(n, H, F)$ the maximum number of copies of $H$ in an $n$-vertex graph that does not contain $F$ as a subgraph. Recently, Grzesik, Győri, Salia, Tompkins considered conditions on $H$ under which $\text{ex}(n, H, K_r)$ is asymptotically attained at a blow-up of $K_{r-1}$, and proposed a conjecture. In this note we disprove their conjecture.
We survey the current state of progress on the Graceful Tree Conjecture, and then we present several new results toward the conjecture, driven by three new ideas: (1) It has been proven that generalized banana trees are graceful by rearranging the branches at the root--consider rearranging branches at all internal vertices; (2) The method of transfers has typically involved type-1 transfers and type-2 transfers--all type-2 transfers are type-1 transfers in disguise, and hence can be removed from the discussion; (3) The method of transfers has typically used the sequence of transfers $0\rightar…
We answer two questions of Shamik Ghosh in the negative. We show that there exists a lobster tree of diameter less than 6 which accepts no alpha-labeling with two central vertices labeled by the critical number and the maximum vertex label. We also show a simple example of a tree of diameter 4, with an even degree central vertex which does not accept a maximum label in any graceful labeling.
Resolutions of two conjectures on the spectral diameter
Union University（联合大学）；University of Split（斯普利特大学）；University of Ljubljana（卢布尔雅那大学）；Rudolfovo – Science and Technology Centre Novo Mesto（鲁多尔福沃 - 诺沃梅斯托科技中心）；University in Novo Mesto（诺沃梅斯托大学）
We introduce a new combinatorial abstraction for the graphs of polyhedra. The new abstraction is a flexible framework defined by combinatorial properties, with each collection of properties taken providing a variant for studying the diameters of polyhedral graphs. One particular variant has a diameter which satisfies the best known upper bound on the diameters of polyhedra. Another variant has superlinear asymptotic diameter, and together with some combinatorial operations, gives a concrete approach for disproving the Linear Hirsch Conjecture.
A graph is diameter two edge-critical if its diameter is two and the deletion of any edge increases the diameter. Murty and Simon conjectured that the number of edges in a diameter two edge-critical graph on $n$ vertices is at most $\lfloor \frac{n^{2}}{4} \rfloor$ and the extremal graph is the complete bipartite graph $K_{\lfloor \frac{n}{2} \rfloor, \lceil \frac{n}{2} \rceil}$. In the series papers [7-9], the Murty-Simon Conjecture stated by Haynes et al. is not the original conjecture, indeed, it is only for the diameter two edge-critical graphs of even order. In this paper, we completely p…
Let $μ(G)$ denote the spectral radius of a graph $G$. We partly confirm a conjecture due to Nikiforov, which is a spectral radius analogue of the well-known Erdős-Sós Conjecture that any tree of order $t$ is contained in a graph of average degree greater than $t-2$. Let $S_{n,k}=K_{k}\vee\overline{K_{n-k}}$, and let $S_{n,k}^{+}$ be the graph obtained from $S_{n,k}$ by adding a single edge joining two vertices of the independent set of $S_{n,k}$. In 2010, Nikiforov conjectured that for a given integer $k$, every graph $G$ of sufficiently large order $n$ with $μ(G)\geq μ(S_{n,k}^{+})$ contains …
We relate two conjectures that play a central role in the reported proof of Rota's Conjecture. Let $\mathbb F$ be a finite field. The first conjecture states that: the branch-width of any $\mathbb F$-representable $N$-fragile matroid is bounded by a function depending only upon $\mathbb F$ and $N$. The second conjecture states that: if a matroid $M_2$ is obtained from a matroid $M_1$ by relaxing a circuit-hyperplane and both $M_1$ and $M_2$ are $\mathbb F$-representable, then the branch-width of $M_1$ is bounded by a function depending only upon $\mathbb F$. Our main result is that the second …
Oriented matroids (often called order types) are combinatorial structures that generalize point configurations, vector configurations, hyperplane arrangements, polyhedra, linear programs, and directed graphs. Oriented matroids have played a key role in combinatorics, computational geometry, and optimization. This paper surveys prior work and presents an update on the search for bounds on the diameter of the cocircuit graph of an oriented matroid. We review the diameter problem and show the diameter bounds of general oriented matroids reduce to those of uniform oriented matroids. We give the la…
A computer search through the oriented matroid programs with dimension 5 and 10 facets shows that the maximum strictly monotone diameter is 5. Thus $Δ_{sm}(5,10)=5$. This enumeration is analogous to that of Bremner and Schewe for the non-monotone diameter of 6-polytopes with 12 facets. Similar enumerations show that $Δ_{sm}(4,9)=5$ and $Δ_m(4,9)=Δ_m(5,10)=6.$ We shorten the known non-computer proof of the strict monotone 4-step conjecture.
It is a classical result that any permutation in the symmetric group can be generated by a sequence of adjacent transpositions. The sequences of minimal length are called reduced words, and in this paper we study the graphs of these reduced words, with edges determined by relations in the underlying Coxeter group. Recently, the diameter has been calculated for the longest permutation $n\ldots 21$ by Reiner and Roichman as well as Assaf. In this paper we find inductive formulas for the diameter of the graphs of 12-inflations and many 21-inflations. These results extend to the associated graphs …
Circuit-augmentation algorithms are generalizations of the Simplex method, where in each step one is allowed to move along a fixed set of directions, called circuits, that is a superset of the edges of a polytope. We show that in the circuit-augmentation framework the greatest-improvement and Dantzig pivot rules are NP-hard, already for 0/1-LPs. Differently, the steepest-descent pivot rule can be carried out in polynomial time in the 0/1 setting, and the number of circuit augmentations required to reach an optimal solution according to this rule is strongly-polynomial for 0/1-LPs. The number o…
The Hirsch conjecture, posed in 1957, stated that the graph of a $d$-dimensional polytope or polyhedron with $n$ facets cannot have diameter greater than $n - d$. The conjecture itself has been disproved, but what we know about the underlying question is quite scarce. Most notably, no polynomial upper bound is known for the diameters that were conjectured to be linear. In contrast, no polyhedron violating the conjecture by more than 25% is known. This paper reviews several recent attempts and progress on the question. Some work in the world of polyhedra or (more often) bounded polytopes, but s…
Let $f(d)$ be the smallest number so that every set in $R^d$ of diameter 1 can be partitioned into $f(d)$ sets of diameter smaller than 1. Borsuk's conjecture was that $f(d)\! =\!d\!+\!1$. We prove that $f(d)\! \ge\! (1.2)^{\sqrt d}$ for large~$d$.
A graceful difference labeling (gdl for short) of a directed graph G with vertex set V is a bijection f between V and {1,...,|V|} such that, when each arc uv is assigned the difference label f(v)-f(u), the resulting arc labels are distinct. We conjecture that all disjoint unions of circuits have a gdl, except in two particular cases. We prove partial results which support this conjecture.
We study the Randic index for cactus graphs. It is conjectured to be bounded below by radius (for other than an even path), and it is known to obey several bounds based on diameter. We study radius and diameter for cacti then verify the radius bound and strengthen two diameter bounds for cacti. Along the way, we produce several other bounds for the Randic index in terms of graph size, order, and valency for several special classes of graphs, including chemical nontrivial cacti and cacti with starlike BC-trees.
The commuting graph of a group $G$ is the simple undirected graph whose vertices are the non-central elements of $G$ and two distinct vertices are adjacent if and only if they commute. It is conjectured by Jafarzadeh and Iranmanesh that there is a universal upper bound on the diameter of the commuting graphs of finite groups when the commuting graph is connected. In this paper we determine upper bounds on the diameter of the commuting graph for some classes of groups to rule them out as possible counterexamples to this conjecture. We also give an example of an infinite family of groups with tr…
In this paper we are concerned with the conjecture that, for any set of generators S of the symmetric group of degree n, the word length in terms of S of every permutation is bounded above by a polynomial of n. We prove this conjecture for sets of generators containing a permutation fixing at least 37% of the points.
Let $k$ and $d$ be such that $k \ge d+2$. Consider two $k$-colourings of a $d$-degenerate graph $G$. Can we transform one into the other by recolouring one vertex at each step while maintaining a proper coloring at any step? Cereceda et al. answered that question in the affirmative, and exhibited a recolouring sequence of exponential length. However, Cereceda conjectured that there should exist one of quadratic length. The $k$-reconfiguration graph of $G$ is the graph whose vertices are the proper $k$-colourings of $G$, with an edge between two colourings if they differ on exactly one vertex. …
The first non-trivial case of Hadwiger's conjecture for oriented matroids reads as follows. If $\mathcal{O}$ is an $M(K_4)$-free oriented matroid, then $\mathcal{O}$ admits a NZ $3$-coflow, i.e., it is $3$-colourable in the sense of Hochstättler-Nešetřil. The class of gammoids is a class of $M(K_4)$-free orientable matroids and it is the minimal minor-closed class that contains all transversal matroids. Towards proving the previous statement for the class of gammoids, Goddyn, Hochstättler, and Neudauer conjectured that every gammoid has a positive coline (equivalently, a positive double circui…
We improve Larman's bound on the diameter of a polytope by showing that if $Δ$ is a normal simplicial complex, all of whose missing faces have size at most $r$, then the diameter of the facet-ridge graph of $Δ$ is not larger than $2^{r-2}n$, where $n$ is the number of vertices of $Δ$. We then use this result to provide new upper bounds on the diameters of the facet-ridge graphs of $k$-neighborly spheres, $r$-stacked spheres, and polytopes with small $g_r$. Specifically, our bounds imply that $r$-stacked spheres with $r=O(\log n)$ satisfy the polynomial Hirsch conjecture.
