The Hadwiger number of a graph $G$, denoted $h(G)$, is the largest integer $t$ such that $G$ contains $K_t$ as a minor. A famous conjecture due to Hadwiger in 1943 states that for every graph $G$, $h(G) \ge χ(G)$, where $χ(G)$ denotes the chromatic number of $G$. Let $α(G)$ denote the independence number of $G$. A graph is $H$-free if it does not contain the graph $H$ as an induced subgraph. In 2003, Plummer, Stiebitz and Toft proved that $h(G) \ge χ(G)$ for all $H$-free graphs $G$ with $α(G) \le 2$, where $H$ is any graph on four vertices with $α(H) \le 2$, $H=C_5$, or $H$ is a particular graph on seven vertices. In 2010, Kriesell considered a particular strengthening of Hadwiger's conjecture due to Seymour and subsequently generalized the statement to include all forbidden subgraphs $H$ on five vertices with $α(H) \le 2$. In this note, we prove that $h(G) \ge χ(G)$ for all $W_5$-free graphs $G$ with $α(G) \le 2$, where $W_5$ denotes the wheel on six vertices.
Given a graph $G$, the Hadwiger number of $G$, denoted by $h(G)$, is the largest integer $k$ such that $G$ contains the complete graph $K_k$ as a minor. A hole in $G$ is an induced cycle of length at least four. Hadwiger's Conjecture from 1943 states that for every graph $G$, $h(G)\ge χ(G)$, where $χ(G)$ denotes the chromatic number of $G$. In this paper we establish more evidence for Hadwiger's conjecture by showing that if a graph $G$ with independence number $α(G)\ge3$ has no hole of length between $4$ and $2α(G)-1$, then $h(G)\geχ(G)$. We also prove that if a graph $G$ with independence nu…
This is a note on three graph parameters motivated by the Euler-Poincare characteristic for simplicial complex. We show those three graph parameters of a given connected graph $G$ is greater than or equal to that of the complete graph with $\max(h(G),χ(G))$ vertices. This will yield three different simultaneous upperbounds of both the hadwiger number and chromatic number by means of the number of particular types of induced subgraphs. Some applications to Hadwiger's Conjecture is also discussed.
Hadwiger's Conjecture states that every $K_{t+1}$-minor-free graph is $t$-colourable. It is widely considered to be one of the most important conjectures in graph theory. If every $K_{t+1}$-minor-free graph has minimum degree at most $δ$, then every $K_{t+1}$-minor-free graph is $(δ+1)$-colourable by a minimum-degree-greedy algorithm. The purpose of this note is to prove a slightly better upper bound.
One of the most important open problems in the field of graph colouring or even graph theory is the conjecture of Hadwiger. This conjecture was the inspiration for many mathematical works, one of them being the work of Füredi, Gyárfás and Simonyi in which they "risked" to conjecture the precise bound for a graph with independence number $2$ to contain a certain connected matching. We prove that their conjecture would be a corollary of Hadwiger's conjecture or equivalently if their risky conjecture would be false, then Hadwiger's conjecture would be false as well.
Motivated by Hadwiger's conjecture, we prove that every $n$-vertex graph $G$ with no independent set of size three contains an $\lceil n/2\rceil$-vertex simple minor $H$ with $$0.98688 \cdot \binom{|V(H)|}{2} - o(n^2)$$ edges.
The Conjecture of Hadwiger implies that the Hadwiger number $h$ times the independence number $α$ of a graph is at least the number of vertices $n$ of the graph. In 1982 Duchet and Meyniel proved a weak version of the inequality, replacing the independence number $α$ by $2α-1$, that is, $$(2α-1)\cdot h \geq n.$$ In 2005 Kawarabayashi, Plummer and the second author published an improvement of the theorem, replacing $2α- 1$ by $2α- 3/2$ when $α$ is at least 3. Since then a further improvement by Kawarabayashi and Song has been obtained, replacing $2α- 1$ by $2α- 2$ when $α$ is at least 3. In thi…
The dichromatic number $\vecχ(D)$ of a digraph $D$ is the smallest $k$ for which it admits a $k$-coloring where every color class induces an acyclic subgraph. Inspired by Hadwiger's conjecture for undirected graphs, several groups of authors have recently studied the containment of directed graph minors in digraphs with given dichromatic number. In this short note we improve several of the existing bounds and prove almost linear bounds by reducing the problem to a recent result of Postle on Hadwiger's conjecture.
In the special case of graphs G of independence number a(G)=3 without induced chordless cycles C7 it is shown that exists connected dominating set D of vertices with number of vertices n(D)<=4. Using the concept of connected dominating sets, we defined a new invariant h(G) that does not exceed the number of Hadwiger. For the considered graphs it is shown that h(G)>=n(G)/4.
In 1957, Hadwiger conjectured that every convex body in $\mathbb{R}^d$ can be covered by $2^d$ translates of its interior. For over 60 years, the best known bound was of the form $O(4^d \sqrt{d} \log d)$, but this was recently improved by a factor of $e^{Ω(\sqrt{d})}$ by Huang, Slomka, Tkocz and Vritsiou. In this note we take another step towards Hadwiger's conjecture by deducing an almost-exponential improvement from the recent breakthrough work of Chen, Klartag and Lehec on Bourgain's slicing problem. More precisely, we prove that, for any convex body $K \subset \mathbb{R}^d$, $$\exp\bigg( -…
Hadwiger's conjecture is one of the most important and long-standing conjectures in graph theory. Reed and Seymour showed in 2004 that Hadwiger's conjecture is true for line graphs. We investigate this conjecture on the closely related class of total graphs. The total graph of $G$, denoted by $T(G)$, is defined on the vertex set $V(G)\sqcup E(G)$ with $c_1,c_2\in V(G)\sqcup E(G)$ adjacent whenever $c_1$ and $c_2$ are adjacent to or incident on each other in $G$. We first show that there exists a constant $C$ such that, if the connectivity of $G$ is at least $C$, then Hadwiger's conjecture is t…
The celebrated Hadwiger's conjecture states that if a graph contains no $K_{t+1}$ minor then it is $t$-colourable. If true, it would in particular imply that every $n$-vertex $K_{t+1}$-minor-free graph has an independent set of size at least $n/t$. In 1982, Duchet and Meyniel proved that this bound holds within a factor $2$. Their bound has been improved; most notably in an absolute factor by Fox, which was later improved by Balogh and Kostochka. Here we consider the same question for triangle-free graphs. By the results of Shearer and Kostochka and Thomason, it follows that any triangle-free …
Hadwiger's conjecture from 1943 states that for every integer $t\ge1$, every graph either can be $t$-colored or has a subgraph that can be contracted to the complete graph on $t+1$ vertices. As pointed out by Paul Seymour in his recent survey on Hadwiger's conjecture, proving that graphs with no $K_7$ minor are $6$-colorable is the first case of Hadwiger's conjecture that is still open. It is not known yet whether graphs with no $K_7$ minor are $7$-colorable. Using a Kempe-chain argument along with the fact that an induced path on three vertices is dominating in a graph with independence numbe…
The independence polynomial of a graph is the generating polynomial for the number of independent sets of each cardinality and its roots are called independence roots. We investigate here purely imaginary independence roots. We show that there are infinitely many connected graphs with purely imaginary independence roots and that every graph is a subgraph of such a graph. We also classify every rational purely imaginary number that is an independence root.
The classical Hadwiger conjecture dating back to 1940's states that any graph of chromatic number at least $r$ has the clique of order $r$ as a minor. Hadwiger's conjecture is an example of a well studied class of problems asking how large a clique minor one can guarantee in a graph with certain restrictions. One problem of this type asks what is the largest size of a clique minor in a graph on $n$ vertices of independence number $α(G)$ at most $r$. If true Hadwiger's conjecture would imply the existence of a clique minor of order $n/α(G)$. Results of Kuhn and Osthus and Krivelevich and Sudako…
Tree-chromatic number is a chromatic version of treewidth, where the cost of a bag in a tree-decomposition is measured by its chromatic number rather than its size. Path-chromatic number is defined analogously. These parameters were introduced by Seymour (JCTB 2016). In this paper, we survey all the known results on tree- and path-chromatic number and then present some new results and conjectures. In particular, we propose a version of Hadwiger's Conjecture for tree-chromatic number. As evidence that our conjecture may be more tractable than Hadwiger's Conjecture, we give a short proof that ev…
We show that the independence complex of a chordal graph is contractible if and only if this complex is dismantlable (strong collapsible) and it is homotopy equivalent to a sphere if and only if its core is a cross-polytopal sphere. The proof uses the properties of tree models of chordal graphs.
In this paper, we give a sufficient and necessary condition for a $k$-extendable graph to be $2k$-factor-critical when $k=ν/4$, and prove some results on independence numbers in $n$-factor-critical graphs and $k\frac{1}{2}$-extendable graphs.
Biclique immersions in graphs with independence number 2
Universidade de São Paulo（圣保罗大学）；Universidad de Valparaíso（瓦尔帕莱索大学）；Universidade Federal do ABC（ABC联邦大学）；CONICET（阿根廷国家科学研究委员会）；Universidad Nacional de San Luis（圣路易斯国立大学）
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.
The independence polynomial $I(G;x)$ of a graph $G$ is $I(G;x)=\sum_{k=1}^{α(G)} s_k x^k$, where $s_k$ is the number of independent sets in $G$ of size $k$. The decycling number of a graph $G$, denoted $ϕ(G)$, is the minimum size of a set $S\subseteq V(G)$ such that $G-S$ is acyclic. Engström proved that the independence polynomial satisfies $|I(G;-1)| \leq 2^{ϕ(G)}$ for any graph $G$, and this bound is best possible. Levit and Mandrescu provided an elementary proof of the bound, and in addition conjectured that for every positive integer $k$ and integer $q$ with $|q|\leq 2^k$, there is a conn…
In this article we consider the relationship between vertex coloring and the immersion order. Specifically, a conjecture proposed by Abu-Khzam and Langston in 2003, which says that the complete graph with $t$ vertices can be immersed in any $t$-chromatic graph, is studied. First, we present a general result about immersions and prove that the conjecture holds for graphs whose complement does not contain any induced cycle of length four and also for graphs having the property that every set of five vertices induces a subgraph with at least six edges. Then, we study the class of all graphs with …
A bi-hole of size $t$ in a bipartite graph $G$ is a copy of $K_{t,t}$ in the bipartite complement of $G$. Given an $n \times n$ bipartite graph $G$, let $β(G)$ be the largest $k$ for which $G$ has a bi-hole of size $k$. We prove that \[ β(G) \geq \left \lfloor \frac{1}{2} \cdot \sum_{v \in V(G)} \frac{1}{d(v)+1} \right \rfloor. \] Furthermore, we prove the following generalization of the result above. Given an $n \times n$ bipartite graph $G$, Let $β_d(G)$ be the largest $k$ for which $G$ has a $k \times k$ $d$-degenerate subgraph. We prove that \[ β_d(G) \geq \left \lfloor \frac{1}{2} \cdot \…
The famous Hadwiger-Nelson problem asks for the minimum number of colors needed to color the points of the Euclidean plane so that no two points unit distance apart are assigned the same color. In this note we consider a variant of the problem in Minkowski metric planes, where the unit circle is a regular polygon of even and at most 22 vertices. We present a simple lattice-sublattice coloring scheme that uses 6 colors, proving that the chromatic number of the Minkowski planes above are at most 6. This result is new for regular polygons having more than 8 vertices.
We study relations between diameter $D(G)$, domination number $γ(G)$, independence number $α(G)$ and cop number $c(G)$ of a connected graph $G$, showing (i.) $c(G) \leq α(G)-\lfloor \frac{D(G)-3}{2} \rfloor$, and (ii.) $c(G) \leq γ(G) - \frac{D(G)}{3} + O (\sqrt{D(G)})$.
We identify the mean growth of the independence number of random binary search trees and random recursive trees and show normal fluctuations around their means. Similarly we also show normal limit laws for the domination number and variations of it for these two cases of random tree models. Our results are an application of a recent general theorem of Holmgren and Janson on fringe trees in these two random tree models.
In this note, we prove a tight lower bound on the joint entropy of $n$ unbiased Bernoulli random variables which are $n/2$-wise independent. For general $k$-wise independence, we give new lower bounds by adapting Navon and Samorodnitsky's Fourier proof of the `LP bound' on error correcting codes. This counts as partial progress on a problem asked by Gavinsky and Pudlák.
Let $r\geq 3$ be an integer and $G$ be a graph. Let $δ(G), Δ(G)$, $α(G)$ and $μ(G)$ denotes minimum degree, maximum degree, independence number and matching number of $G$, respectively. Recently, Caro, Davila and Pepper proved $δ(G)α(G)\leq Δ(G)μ(G)$. Mohr and Rautenbach characterized the extremal graphs for non-regular graphs and 3-regular graphs. In this note, we characterize the extremal graphs for all $r$-regular graphs in term of Gallai-Edmonds Structure Theorem, which extends Mohr and Rautenbach's result.
The neighborhood polynomial of graph $G$, denoted by $N(G,x)$, is the generating function for the number of vertex subsets of $G$ which are subsets of open neighborhoods of vertices in $G$. For any graph polynomial, it can be useful to generate a new family of polynomials by introducing some restrictions and characterizations. In this paper, we investigate two new graph polynomials that are obtained from $N(G,x)$ by adding independence or connectivity restrictions to the vertex subsets or to the subgraphs induced by the vertex subsets which are generated by $N(G,x)$. These new polynomials are …
An $(n,r,s)$-system is an $r$-uniform hypergraph on $n$ vertices such that every pair of edges has an intersection of size less than $s$. Using probabilistic arguments, Rödl and Šiňajová showed that for all fixed integers $r> s \ge 2$, there exists an $(n,r,s)$-system with independence number $O\left(n^{1-δ+o(1)}\right)$ for some optimal constant $δ>0$ only related to $r$ and $s$. We show that for certain pairs $(r,s)$ with $s\le r/2$ there exists an explicit construction of an $(n,r,s)$-system with independence number $O\left(n^{1-ε}\right)$, where $ε> 0$ is an absolute constant only related …
In this paper we prove a new zero-free region for the partition function of the hard-core model, that is, the independence polynomials of graphs with largest degree $Δ$. This new domain contains the half disk $$D=\left\{ λ\in \mathbb{C}\ |\ \mathrm{Re}(λ)\geq 0, |λ|\leq \frac{7}{8}\tan \left( \fracπ{2(Δ-1)}\right)\right\}.$$
The $k$-independence number of a graph is the maximum size of a set of vertices at pairwise distance greater than $k$. A graph is called $k$-partially walk-regular if the number of closed walks of a given length $l\le k$, rooted at a vertex $v$, only depends on $l$. In particular, a distance-regular graph is also $k$-partially walk-regular for any $k$. In this note, we introduce a new family of polynomials obtained from the spectrum of a graph. These polynomials, together with the interlacing technique, allow us to give tight spectral bounds on the $k$-independence number of a $k$-partially wa…
This note is purely expository and is in Russian. We show how to prove interesting combinatorial results using the local Lovasz lemma. The note is accessible for students having basic knowledge of combinatorics; the notion of independence is defined and the Lovasz lemma is stated and proved. Our exposition follows `Probabilistic methods' of N. Alon and J. Spencer. The main difference is that we show how the proof could have been invented. The material is presented as a sequence of problems, which is peculiar not only to Zen monasteries but also to advanced mathematical education; most problems…
The packing chromatic number $χ_ρ(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the smallest integer $k$ such that there exists a $k$-vertex coloring of $G$ in which any two vertices receiving color $i$ are at distance at least $i+1$. In this short note we present upper and lower bound for the packing chromatic number of the lexicographic product $G\circ H$ of graphs $G$ and $H$. Both bounds coincide in many cases. In particular this happens if $|V(H)|-α(H)\geq {\rm diam}(G)-1$, where $α(G)$ denotes the independence number of $G$.
We show that there is an absolute constant $c>0$ such that the following holds. For every $n > 1$, there is a 5-uniform hypergraph on at least $2^{2^{cn^{1/4}}}$ vertices with independence number at most $n$, where every set of 6 vertices induces at most 3 edges. The double exponential growth rate for the number of vertices is sharp. By applying a stepping-up lemma established by the first two authors, analogous sharp results are proved for $k$-uniform hypergraphs. This answers the penultimate open case of a conjecture in Ramsey theory posed by Erdős and Hajnal in 1972.
In a Note added in proof to a 1984 paper, Daniel A. Marcus claimed to have a counterexample to his conjecture that a minimal positively k-spanning vector configuration in R^m has size at most 2km. However, the counterexample was never published, and seems to be lost. Independently, ten years earlier, Peter Mani in 1974 solved a problem by Hadwiger, disproving that every ``illuminated'' d-dimensional polytope must have at least 2d vertices. These two studies are related by Gale duality, an elementary linear algebra technique devised by Micha A. Perles in the sixties. Thus, we note that Mani's s…
A vertex of a graph is bisimplicial if the set of its neighbors is the union of two cliques; a graph is quasi-line if every vertex is bisimplicial. A recent result of Chudnovsky and Seymour asserts that every non-empty even-hole-free graph has a bisimplicial vertex. Both Hadwiger's conjecture and the Erdős-Lovász Tihany conjecture have been shown to be true for quasi-line graphs, but are open for even-hole-free graphs. In this note, we prove that for all $k\ge7$, every even-hole-free graph with no $K_k$ minor is $(2k-5)$-colorable; every even-hole-free graph $G$ with $ω(G)<χ(G)=s+t-1$ satisfie…
Fendley, Schoutens and van Eerten [Fendley et al., J. Phys. A: Math. Gen., 38 (2005), pp. 315-322] studied the hard square model at negative activity. They found analytical and numerical evidence that the eigenvalues of the transfer matrix with periodic boundary were all roots of unity. They also conjectured that for an m times n square grid, with doubly periodic boundary, the partition function is equal to 1 when m and n are relatively prime. These conjectures were later proven by Jonsson [Jonsson, Electronic J. Combin., 13(1) (2006), R67]. There, it was also noted that the cylindrical case s…
We say that a graph $F$ strongly arrows a pair of graphs $(G,H)$ if any 2-colouring of its edges with red and blue leads to either a red $G$ or a blue $H$ appearing as induced subgraphs of $F$. The induced Ramsey number, $IR(G,H)$ is defined as the minimum number of vertices of a graph $F$ which strongly arrows a pair $(G,H)$. We will consider two aspects of induced Ramsey numbers. Firstly there will be shown that the lower bound of the induced Ramsey number for a connected graph $G$ with independence number $α$ and a graph $H$ with clique number $ω$ roughly $\frac{ω^2α}{2}$. This bounds is sh…
