Let $t>0$ be a real number and $G$ be a graph. We say $G$ is $t$-tough if for every cutset $S$ of $G$, the ratio of $|S|$ to the number of components of $G-S$ is at least $t$. Determining toughness is an NP-hard problem for arbitrary graphs. The Toughness Conjecture of Chvátal, stating that there exists a constant $t_0$ such that every $t_0$-tough graph with at least three vertices is hamiltonian, is still open in general. A graph is called $(P_2\cup P_3)$-free if it does not contain any induced subgraph isomorphic to $P_2\cup P_3$, the union of two vertex-disjoint paths of order 2 and 3, respectively. In this paper, we show that every 15-tough $(P_2\cup P_3)$-free graph with at least three vertices is hamiltonian.
The toughness of a noncomplete graph $G$ is the maximum real number $t$ such that the ratio of $|S|$ to the number of components of $G-S$ is at least $t$ for every cutset $S$ of $G$, and the toughness of a complete graph is defined to be $\infty$. Determining the toughness for a given graph is NP-hard. Chvátal's toughness conjecture, stating that there exists a constant $t_0$ such that every graph with toughness at least $t_0$ is hamiltonian, is still open for general graphs. A graph is called $(P_3\cup 2P_1)$-free if it does not contain any induced subgraph isomorphic to $P_3\cup 2P_1$, the d…
Let $k \geq 2$ be an integer. We say that a graph $G$ is $(K_2 \cup kK_1)$-free if it does not contain $K_2 \cup kK_1$ as an induced subgraph. Recently, Shi and Shan conjectured that every $1$-tough and $2k$-connected $(K_2 \cup kK_1)$-free graph is hamiltonian. In this paper, we solve this conjecture by proving the statement; every $1$-tough and $k$-connected $(K_2 \cup kK_1)$-free graph with minimum degree at least $\frac{3(k-1)}{2}$ is hamiltonian or the Petersen graph.
Chvátal conjectured in 1973 the existence of some constant $t$ such that all $t$-tough graphs with at least three vertices are hamiltonian. While the conjecture has been proven for some special classes of graphs, it remains open in general. We say that a graph is $(K_2 \cup 3K_1)$-free if it contains no induced subgraph isomorphic to $K_2 \cup 3K_1$, where $K_2 \cup 3K_1$ is the disjoint union of an edge and three isolated vertices. In this paper, we show that every 3-tough $(K_2 \cup 3K_1)$-free graph with at least three vertices is hamiltonian.
Given a graph $H$, a graph $G$ is $H$-free if $G$ does not contain $H$ as an induced subgraph. For a positive real number $t$, a non-complete graph $G$ is said to be $t$-tough if for every vertex cut $S$ of $G$, the ratio of $|S|$ to the number of components of $G-S$ is at least $t$. A complete graph is said to be $t$-tough for any $t>0$. Chvátal's toughness conjecture, stating that there exists a constant $t_0$ such that every $t_0$-tough graph with at least three vertices is Hamiltonian, is still open in general. Chvátal and Erdös \cite{CE} proved that, for any integer $k\ge 1$, every $\max\…
Let $t>0$ be a real number and $G$ be a graph. We say $G$ is $t$-tough if for every cutset $S$ of $G$, the ratio of $|S|$ to the number of components of $G-S$ is at least $t$. The Toughness Conjecture of Chvátal, stating that there exists a constant $t_0$ such that every $t_0$-tough graph with at least three vertices is hamiltonian, is still open in general. For any given integer $k\ge 1$, a graph $G$ is $(P_2\cup kP_1)$ free if $G$ does not contain the disjoint union of $P_2$ and $k$ isolated vertices as an induced subgraph. In this note, we show that every 4-tough and $2k$-connected $(P_2\cu…
A graph $G$ is $H$-free if it has no induced subgraph isomorphic to $H$, where $H$ is a graph. In this paper, we show that every $\frac{3}{2}$-tough $(P_4 \cup P_{10})$-free graph has a 2-factor. The toughness condition of this result is sharp. Moreover, for any $\varepsilon>0$ there exists a $(2-\varepsilon)$-tough $2P_5$-free graph without a 2-factor. This implies that the graph $P_4 \cup P_{10}$ is best possible for a forbidden subgraph in a sense.
Let $G$ be a $t$-tough graph of order $n$ and minimum degree $δ$ with $t>1$. It is proved that if $δ\ge(n-2)/3$ then each longest cycle in $G$ is a dominating cycle.
In 1974, Goodman and Hedetniemi proved that every 2-connected $(K_{1,3},K_{1,3}+e)$-free graph is hamiltonian. This result gave rise many other hamiltonicity conditions for various pairs and triples of forbidden connected subgraphs under additional connectivity conditions. In 1997, it was proved that a single forbidden connected subgraph $R$ in 2-connected graphs can create only a trivial class of hamiltonian graphs (complete graphs) with $R=P_3$. In this paper we prove that a single forbidden subgraph $R$ can create a non trivial class of hamiltonian graphs if $R$ is disconnected: $(\ast1)$ e…
We prove: (i) if $G$ is a 1-tough graph of order $n$ and minimum degree $δ$ with $δ\ge(n-2)/3$ then each longest cycle in $G$ is a dominating cycle unless $G$ belongs to an easily specified class of graphs with $κ(G)=2$ and $τ(G)=1$. The second result follows immediately from the first result: (ii) if $G$ is a 3-connected 1-tough graph with $δ\ge(n-2)/3$ then each longest cycle in $G$ is a dominating cycle.
A graph is called $2K_2$-free if it does not contain two independent edges as an induced subgraph. Broersma, Patel, and Pyatkin showed that every 25-tough $2K_2$-free graph with at least three vertices is hamiltonian. In this paper, we improve the required toughness in this result from 25 to 3.
It is proved that if $G$ is a $t$-tough graph of order $n$ and minimum degree $δ$ with $t>1$ then either $G$ has a cycle of length at least $\min\{n,2δ+4\}$ or $G$ is the Petersen graph.
In 1952, Dirac proved that every 2-connected graph with minimum degree $δ$ either is hamiltonian or contains a cycle of length at least $2δ$. In 1986, Bauer and Schmeichel enlarged the bound $2δ$ to $2δ+2$ under additional 1-tough condition - an alternative and more natural necessary condition for a graph to be hamiltonian. In fact, the bound $2δ+2$ is sharp for a graph on $n$ vertices when $n\equiv 1(mod\ 3)$. In this paper we present the final version of this result which is sharp for each $n$: every 1-tough graph either is hamiltonian or contains a cycle of length at least $2δ+2$ when $n\eq…
A graph $G$ is called a $2K_2$-free graph if it does not contain $2K_2$ as an induced subgraph. In 2014, Broersma, Patel and Pyatkin showed that every 25-tough $2K_2$-free graph on at least three vertices is Hamiltonian. Recently, Shan improved this result by showing that 3-tough is sufficient instead of 25-tough. In this paper, we show that every 2-tough $2K_2$-free graph on at least three vertices is Hamiltonian, which was conjectured by Gao and Pasechnik.
The study of the existence of hamiltonian cycles in a graph is a classic problem in graph theory. By incorporating toughness and spectral conditions, we can consider Chvátal's conjecture from another perspective: what is the spectral condition to guarantee the existence of a hamiltonian cycle among $t$-tough graphs? We first give the answer to $1$-tough graphs, i.e. if $ρ(G)\geqρ(M_{n})$, then $G$ contains a hamiltonian cycle, unless $G\cong M_{n}$, where $M_{n}=K_{1}\nabla K_{n-4}^{+3}$ and $K_{n-4}^{+3}$ is the graph obtained from $3K_{1}\cup K_{n-4}$ by adding three independent edges betwee…
Chen et al. proved that every 18-tough chordal graph has a Hamilton cycle [Networks 31 (1998), 29-38]. Improving upon their bound, we show that every 10-tough chordal graph is Hamiltonian (in fact, Hamilton-connected). We use Aharoni and Haxell's hypergraph extension of Hall's Theorem as our main tool.
It is proved that if $G$ is a $t$-tough graph of order $n$ and minimum degree $δ$ with $t>1$ then either $G$ has a cycle of length at least $\min\{n,2δ+5\}$ or $G$ is the Petersen graph.
A graph $G$ is minimally $t$-tough if the toughness of $G$ is $t$ and the deletion of any edge from $G$ decreases the toughness. Kriesell conjectured that for every minimally $1$-tough graph the minimum degree $δ(G)=2$. We show that in every minimally $1$-tough graph $δ(G)\le\frac{n+2}{3}$. We also prove that every minimally $1$-tough claw-free graph is a cycle. On the other hand, we show that for every $t \in \mathbb{Q}$ any graph can be embedded as an induced subgraph into a minimally $t$-tough graph.
Studying the shortness of longest cycles in maximal planar graphs, we improve the upper bound on the shortness exponent of the class of $\frac{5}{4}$-tough maximal planar graphs presented by Harant and Owens [Discrete Math. 147 (1995), 301--305]. In addition, we present two generalizations of a similar result of Tkáč who considered $1$-tough maximal planar graphs [Discrete Math. 154 (1996), 321--328]; we remark that one of these generalizations gives a tight upper bound. We fix a problematic argument used in the first paper.
We show that an edge-dominating cycle in a $2K_2$-free graph can be found in polynomial time; this implies that every 1/(k-1)-tough $2K_2$-free graph admits a k-walk, and it can be found in polynomial time. For this class of graphs, this proves a long-standing conjecture due to Jackson and Wormald (1990). Furthermore, we prove that for any ε>0 every (1+ε)-tough $2K_2$-free graph is prism-Hamiltonian and give an effective construction of a Hamiltonian cycle in the corresponding prism, along with few other similar results.
Spectral radius, toughness and $k$-factor of graphs
School of Mathematics, East China University of Science and Technology（华东理工大学数学学院）；College of Mathematics and System Science, Xinjiang University（新疆大学数学与系统科学学院）
Let $G$ be a simple graph, and let $Δ(G)$ and $χ'(G)$ denote the maximum degree and chromatic index of $G$, respectively. Vizing proved that $χ'(G)=Δ(G)$ or $Δ(G)+1$. We say $G$ is $Δ$-critical if $χ'(G)=Δ+1$ and $χ'(H)<χ'(G)$ for every proper subgraph $H$ of $G$. In 1968, Vizing conjectured that if $G$ is a $Δ$-critical graph, then $G$ has a 2-factor. Let $G$ be an $n$-vertex $Δ$-critical graph. It was proved that if $Δ(G)\ge n/2$, then $G$ has a 2-factor; and that if $Δ(G)\ge 2n/3+12$, then $G$ has a hamiltonian cycle, and thus a 2-factor. It is well known that every 2-tough graph with at le…
For a 1-tough graph $G$ we define $σ_3(G) = \min\{°(u) + °(v)+ °(w):$ $\{u, v, w\}$ is an independent set of vertices$\}$ and $NC2(G)=\min \{|N(u)\cup N(v)|: d(u,v)=2\}$. D. Bauer, G. Fan and H.J.Veldman proved that $c(G)\geq \min\{n,2NC2(G)\}$ for any 1-tough graph $G$ with $σ_3(G)\geq n\geq 3$, where $c(G)$ is the circumference of $G$ (D. Bauer, G. Fan and H.J.Veldman,Hamiltonian properties of graphs with large neighborhood unions,Discrete Mathematics, 1991). They also conjectured a stronger upper bound for the circumference: $c(G)\geq\min\{n,2NC2(G)+4\}$.In this paper, we prove this conject…
In this paper, we provide a method to find a Hamiltonian cycle in the prism of a 5-chordal graph, which is $(1+ε)$-tough, with some special conditions.
We present sufficient conditions for when an ordering of universal cycles $α_1, α_2, \ldots, α_m$ for disjoint sets $\mathbf{S}_1, \mathbf{S}_2, \ldots , \mathbf{S}_m$ can be concatenated together to obtain a universal cycle for $\mathbf{S} = \mathbf{S}_1 \cup \mathbf{S}_2 \cup \cdots \cup \mathbf{S}_m$. When $\mathbf{S}$ is the set of all $k$-ary strings of length $n$, the result of such a successful construction is a de Bruijn sequence. Our conditions are applied to generalize two previously known de Bruijn sequence constructions and then they are applied to develop three new de Bruijn seque…
The research in the present paper was motivated by the conjecture of Ryjáček that every locally connected graph is weakly pancyclic. For a connected locally connected graph $G$ of order at least $3$, our results are as follows: If $G$ is $(K_1+(K_1\cup K_2))$-free, then $G$ is weakly pancyclic. If $G$ is $(K_1+(K_1\cup K_2))$-free, then $G$ is fully cycle extendable if and only if $2δ(G)\geq n(G)$. If $G$ is $\{ K_1+K_1+\bar{K}_3,K_1+P_4\}$-free or $\{ K_1+K_1+\bar{K}_3,K_1+(K_1\cup P_3)\}$-free, then $G$ is fully cycle extendable. If $G$ is distinct from $K_1+K_1+\bar{K}_3$ and $\{ K_1+P_4,K_…
Let ${\cal H}$ denote the family of all graphs with multi-$4$-cycles and suppose that $G \in {\cal H}$. Then, $G$ is a bipartite graph with a vertex bipartition $\{V_α, V_β\}$. We prove that for every vertex $v \in V_β$ and for every $2$-colouring $V_α \rightarrow \{1, 2\}$ there exists a $2$-colouring $V_β \rightarrow \{1, 2\}$ such that every cycle in $G$ is not monochromatic and $b(v) = 1$ ($b(v) = 2$). Let now $G$ be a simple even plane triangulation with a vertex $3$-partition $\{V_{1}, V_{2}, V_{3}\}$. Denote by $B_{i}$, $i = 1, 2, 3$, the set of all vertices in $V_i$ of degree at least …
For an odd integer $k$, let $\mathcal{C}_k = \{C_3,C_5,...,C_k\}$ denote the family of all odd cycles of length at most $k$ and let $\mathcal{C}$ denote the family of all odd cycles. Erdős and Simonovits \cite{ESi1} conjectured that for every family $\mathcal{F}$ of bipartite graphs, there exists $k$ such that $\ex{n}{\mathcal{F} \cup \mathcal{C}_k} \sim \ex{n}{\mathcal{F} \cup \mathcal{C}}$ as $n \rightarrow \infty$. This conjecture was proved by Erdős and Simonovits when $\mathcal{F} = \{C_4\}$, and for certain families of even cycles in \cite{KSV}. In this paper, we give a general approach …
We show that if G is a 4-critical graph embedded in a fixed surface $Σ$ so that every contractible cycle has length at least 5, then G can be expressed as $G=G'\cup G_1\cup G_2\cup ... \cup G_k$, where $|V(G')|$ and $k$ are bounded by a constant (depending linearly on the genus of $Σ$) and $G_1\ldots,G_k$ are graphs (of unbounded size) whose structure we describe exactly. The proof is computer-assisted - we use computer to enumerate all plane 4-critical graphs of girth 5 with a precolored cycle of length at most 16, that are used in the basic case of the inductive proof of the statement.
Let $n>k>\ell$ be positive integers. We say a $k$-uniform hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$ contains a Hamilton $(\ell,k-\ell)$-cycle if there is a partition $(L_0,R_0,L_1,R_1,\ldots,L_{t-1},R_{t-1})$ of $V(\mathcal{H})$ with $|L_i|=\ell$, $|R_i|=k-\ell$ such that $L_i\cup R_i$ and $R_i\cup L_{i+1}$ (subscripts module $t$) are all edges of $\mathcal{H}$ for $i=0,1,\ldots,t-1$. In the present paper, we determine the tight minimum $\ell$-degree condition that guarantees the existence of a Hamilton $(\ell,k-\ell)$-cycle in every $k$-uniform $n$-vertex hypergraph for $k\geq 7$, $k/2\leq \ell\leq k-1$ and s…
We study 3-coloring properties of triangle-free planar graphs $G$ with two precolored 4-cycles $C_1$ and $C_2$ that are far apart. We prove that either every precoloring of $C_1\cup C_2$ extends to a 3-coloring of $G$, or $G$ contains one of two special substructures which uniquely determine which 3-colorings of $C_1\cup C_2$ extend. As a corollary, we prove that there exists a constant $D>0$ such that if $H$ is a planar triangle-free graph and $S\subseteq V(H)$ consists of vertices at pairwise distances at least $D$, then every precoloring of $S$ extends to a 3-coloring of $H$. This gives a p…
Given a graph $H$ and a set of graphs $\mathcal F$, let $ex(n,H,\mathcal F)$ denote the maximum possible number of copies of $H$ in an $\mathcal F$-free graph on $n$ vertices. We investigate the function $ex(n,H,\mathcal F)$, when $H$ and members of $\mathcal F$ are cycles. Let $C_k$ denote the cycle of length $k$ and let $\mathscr C_k=\{C_3,C_4,\ldots,C_k\}$. Some of our main results are the following. (i) We show that $ex(n, C_{2l}, C_{2k}) = Θ(n^l)$ for any $l, k \ge 2$. Moreover, we determine it asymptotically in the following cases: We show that $ex(n,C_4,C_{2k}) = (1+o(1)) \frac{(k-1)(k-…
Let $k,a,b$ be positive integers with $a+b=k$. A $k$-uniform hypergraph is called an $(a,b)$-cycle if there is a partition $(A_0,B_0,A_1,B_1,\ldots,A_{t-1},B_{t-1})$ of the vertex set with $|A_i|=a$, $|B_i|=b$ such that $A_i\cup B_i$ and $B_i\cup A_{i+1}$ (subscripts module $t$) are edges for all $i=0,1,\ldots,t-1$. Let $\mathcal{H}$ be a $k$-uniform $n$-vertex hypergraph with $n\geq 5k$ and $n$ divisible by $k$. By applying the concentration inequality for intersections of a uniform hypergraph with a random matching developed by Frankl and Kupavskii, we show that if there exists $α\in (0,1)$ …
Given an $n$-vertex graph $G$ with minimum degree at least $d n$ for some fixed $d > 0$, the distribution $G \cup \mathbb{G}(n,p)$ over the supergraphs of $G$ is referred to as a (random) {\sl perturbation} of $G$. We consider the distribution of edge-coloured graphs arising from assigning each edge of the random perturbation $G \cup \mathbb{G}(n,p)$ a colour, chosen independently and uniformly at random from a set of colours of size $r := r(n)$. We prove that such edge-coloured graph distributions a.a.s. admit rainbow Hamilton cycles whenever the edge-density of the random perturbation satisf…
