In this short note, we revisit Zeilberger's proof of the classical matrix-tree theorem and give a unified concise proof of variants of this theorem, some known and some new.
Given a graph $G=(V,E)$ whose vertices have been properly coloured, we say that a path in $G$ is "colourful" if no two vertices in the path have the same colour. It is a corollary of the Gallai-Roy-Vitaver Theorem that every properly coloured graph contains a colourful path on $χ(G)$ vertices. We explore a conjecture that states that every properly coloured triangle-free graph $G$ contains an induced colourful path on $χ(G)$ vertices and prove its correctness when the girth of $G$ is at least $χ(G)$. Recent work on this conjecture by Gyárfás and Sárközy, and Scott and Seymour has shown the exi…
Two subclasses of Motzkin paths, S-Motzkin and T-Motzkin paths, are introduced. We provide bijections between S-Motzkin paths and ternary trees, S-Motzkin paths and non-crossing trees, and T-Motzkin paths and ordered pairs of ternary trees. Symbolic equations for both paths, and thus generating functions for the paths, are provided. Using these, various parameters involving the two paths are analyzed.
A bijection between ternary trees with $n$ nodes and a subclass of Motzkin paths of length $3n$ is given. This bijection can then be generalized to $t$-ary trees.
The existence of greatest lower bounds in the imbalance order of path-length sequences of binary trees is seen to be a consequence of a joint monotonicity property of the greater and lower expension operations. Path length sequences that are join-irreducible in the imbalance lattice are characterized.
In \cite{BaDeFePi96} the concept of nondecreasing Dyck paths was introduced. We continue this research by looking at it from the point of view of words, rational languages, planted plane trees, and continued fractions. We construct a bijection with planted plane trees of height $\le 4$ and compute various statistics on trees that are the equivalents of nondecreasing Dyck paths.
We give a necessary and sufficient condition for the maximum multiplicity of a root of the matching polynomial of a tree to be equal to the minimum number of vertex disjoint paths needed to cover it.
We apply Ramsey theoretic tools to show that there is a family of graphs which have tree-chromatic number at most~$2$ while the path-chromatic number is unbounded. This resolves a problem posed by Seymour.
For a graph $G$ and a tree-decomposition $(T, \mathcal{B})$ of $G$, the chromatic number of $(T, \mathcal{B})$ is the maximum of $χ(G[B])$, taken over all bags $B \in \mathcal{B}$. The tree-chromatic number of $G$ is the minimum chromatic number of all tree-decompositions $(T, \mathcal{B})$ of $G$. The path-chromatic number of $G$ is defined analogously. In this paper, we introduce an operation that always increases the path-chromatic number of a graph. As an easy corollary of our construction, we obtain an infinite family of graphs whose path-chromatic number and tree-chromatic number are dif…
We obtain a differential equation for the enumeration of the path length of general increasing trees. By using differential operators and their combinatorial interpretation we give a bijective proof of a version of Faà di Bruno formula, and model the generation of ballot and Dyck paths. We get formulas for its enumeration according with the height of their lattice points. Recursive formulas for the enumeration of enriched increasing trees and forests with respect to the height of their internal and external vertices are also obtained. Finally we present a generalized form of all those results …
Recently Csikvári \cite{csik} proved a conjecture of Nikiforov concerning the number of closed walks on trees. Our aim is to extend his theorem to all walks. In addition, we give a simpler proof of Csikvári's result and answer one of his questions in the negative. Finally we consider an analogous question for paths rather than walks.
An earlier characterization of topologically ordered (lexicographic) path-length sequences of binary trees is reformulated in terms of an integrality condition on a scaled Kraft sum of certain subsequences (full segments, or islands). The scaled Kraft sum is seen to count the set of ancestors at a certain level of a set of topologically consecutive leaves is a binary tree.
Bouttier, Di Francesco and Guitter introduced a method for solving certain classes of algebraic recurrence relations arising the context of embedded trees and map enumeration. The aim of this note is to apply this method to three problems. First, we discuss a general family of embedded binary trees, trying to unify and summarize several enumeration results for binary tree families, and also to add new results. Second, we discuss the family of embedded $d$-ary trees, embedded in the plane in a natural way. Third, we show that several enumeration problems concerning simple families of lattice pa…
A reformulation of the path length of binary search trees is given in terms of permutations, allowing to extend the definition to the instance of words, where the letters are obtained by independent geometric random variables (with parameter q). In this way, expressions for expectation and variance are obtained which in the limit for $q\to1$ are the classical expressions.
The problem of counting plane trees with $n$ edges and an even or an odd number of leaves was studied by Eu, Liu and Yeh, in connection with an identity on coloring nets due to Stanley. This identity was also obtained by Bonin, Shapiro and Simion in their study of Schröder paths, and it was recently derived by Coker using the Lagrange inversion formula. An equivalent problem for partitions was independently studied by Klazar. We present three parity reversing involutions, one for unlabelled plane trees, the other for labelled plane trees and one for 2-Motzkin paths which are in one-to-one corr…
The register function (or Horton-Strahler number) of a binary tree is a well-known combinatorial parameter. We study a reduction procedure for binary trees which offers a new interpretation for the register function as the maximal number of reductions that can be applied to a given tree. In particular, the precise asymptotic behavior of the number of certain substructures ("branches") that occur when reducing a tree repeatedly is determined. In the same manner we introduce a reduction for simple two-dimensional lattice paths from which a complexity measure similar to the register function can …
We consider questions related to the existence of spanning trees in graphs with the property that after the removal of any path in the tree the graph remains connected. We show that, for planar graphs, the existence of trees with this property is closely related to the Hamiltonicity of the graph. For graphs with a 1- or 2-vertex cut, the Hamiltonicity also plays a central role. We also deal with spanning trees satisfying this property restricted to paths arising from fundamental cycles. The cycle space of a graph can be generated by the fundamental cycles of any spanning tree, and Tutte showed…
Nesetril and Ossona de Mendez introduced the notion of first order convergence as an attempt to unify the notions of convergence for sparse and dense graphs. It is known that there exist first order convergent sequences of graphs with no limit modeling (an analytic representation of the limit). On the positive side, every first order convergent sequence of trees or graphs with no long path (graphs with bounded tree-depth) has a limit modeling. We strengthen these results by showing that every first order convergent sequence of plane trees (trees with embeddings in the plane) and every first or…
We provide formulas for generating functions of many types of paths in various rooted tree structures. We compute the $k$th moment of the generating functions for various types of vertical paths. In two specific familes of trees we find exact closed formulas for expectations and their asymptotic values. Some of these closed formulas are surprisingly simple.
Let $R=k[x_{1},\ldots,x_{n}]$, where $k$ is a field. The path ideal (of length $t\geq 2$) of a directed graph $G$ is the monomial ideal, denoted by $I_{t}(G)$, whose generators correspond to the directed paths of length $t$ in $G$. Let $Γ$ be a directed rooted tree. We characterize all such trees whose path ideals are unmixed and Cohen-Macaulay. Moreover, we show that $R/I_{t}(Γ)$ is Gorenstein if and only if the Stanley-Reisner simplicial complex of $I_{t}(Γ)$ is a matroid.
The register function (or Horton-Strahler number) of a binary tree is a well-known combinatorial parameter. We study a reduction procedure for binary trees which offers a new interpretation for the register function as the maximal number of reductions that can be applied to a given tree. In particular, the precise asymptotic behavior of the number of certain substructures ("branches") that occur when reducing a tree repeatedly is determined. In the same manner we introduce a reduction for simple two-dimensional lattice paths from which a complexity measure similar to the register function can …
A bijection is constructed between two sets of height restricted lattice paths by means of translating them in two tree classe, namely plane trees and Elena trees. An old bijection between them can be used now for that actual problem.
We introduce the notion of doubly rooted plane trees and give a decomposition of these trees, called the butterfly decomposition which turns out to have many applications. From the butterfly decomposition we obtain a one-to-one correspondence between doubly rooted plane trees and free Dyck paths, which implies a simple derivation of a relation between the Catalan numbers and the central binomial coefficients. We also establish a one-to-one correspondence between leaf-colored doubly rooted plane trees and free Schröder paths. The classical Chung-Feller theorem on free Dyck paths and some genera…
Assume that we embed the path $P_n$ as a subgraph of a $2$-dimensional grid, namely, $P_k \times P_l$. Given such an embedding, we consider the ordered set of subpaths $L_1, L_2, \ldots , L_m$ which are maximal straight segments in the embedding, and such that the end of $L_i$ is the beginning of $L_{i+1}$. Suppose that $L_i\cong P_2$, for some $i$ and that some vertex $u$ of $L_{i-1}$ is at distance $1$ in the grid to a vertex $v$ of $L_{i+1}$. An elementary transformation of the path consists in replacing the edge of $L_i$ by a new edge $uv$. A tree $T$ of order $n$ is said to be a path-like…
A theta is a graph consisting of two non-adjacent vertices and three internally disjoint paths between them, each of length at least two. For a family $\mathcal{H}$ of graphs, we say a graph $G$ is $\mathcal{H}$-free if no induced subgraph of $G$ is isomorphic to a member of $\mathcal{H}$. We prove a conjecture of Sintiari and Trotignon, that there exists an absolute constant $c$ for which every (theta, triangle)-free graph $G$ has treewidth at most $c\log (|V(G)|)$. A construction by Sintiari and Trotignon shows that this bound is asymptotically best possible, and (theta, triangle)-free graph…
Given a set of points in the plane, a covering path is a polygonal path that visits all the points. In this paper we consider covering paths of the vertices of an n x m grid. We show that the minimal number of segments of such a path is $2\min(n,m)-1$ except when we allow crossings and $n=m\ge 3$, in which case the minimal number of segments of such a path is $2\min(n,m)-2$, i.e., in this case we can save one segment. In fact we show that these are true even if we consider covering trees instead of paths. These results extend previous works on axis-aligned covering paths of n x m grids and com…
For $n\geq 5$ and $2\leq g\leq n-3,$ consider the tree $P_{n-g,g}$ on $n$ vertices which is obtained by adding $g$ pendant vertices to one degree $1$ vertex of the path $P_{n-g}$. We call the trees $P_{n-g,g}$ as path-star trees. We prove that over all trees on $n\geq 5$ vertices, the distance between center and subtree core and the distance between centroid and subtree core are maximized by some path-star trees. We also prove that the tree $P_{n-g_0,g_0}$ maximizes both the distances among all path-star trees on $n$ vertices, where $g_0$ is the smallest positive integer such that $2^{g_0}+g_0…
We show that every $k$-tree of toughness greater than $\frac{k}{3}$ is Hamilton-connected for $k \geq 3$. (In particular, chordal planar graphs of toughness greater than $1$ are Hamilton-connected.) This improves the result of Broersma et al. (2007) and generalizes the result of Böhme et al. (1999). On the other hand, we present graphs whose longest paths are short. Namely, we construct $1$-tough chordal planar graphs and $1$-tough planar $3$-trees, and we show that the shortness exponent of the class is $0$, at most $\log_{30}{22}$, respectively. Both improve the bound of Böhme et al. Further…
The dominating graph of a graph $H$ has as its vertices all dominating sets of $H$, with an edge between two dominating sets if one can be obtained from the other by the addition or deletion of a single vertex of $H$. In this paper we prove that the dominating graph of any tree has a Hamilton path. We also show how a result about binary strings leads to a proof that the dominating graph of a cycle on $n$ vertices has a Hamilton path if and only if $n\not\equiv 0 \pmod 4$.
The aim of this paper is to provide an affirmative answer to a recent question by Bubeck and Linial on the local profile of trees. For a tree $T$, let $p^{(k)}_1(T)$ be the proportion of paths among all $k$-vertex subtrees (induced connected subgraphs) of $T$, and let $p^{(k)}_2(T)$ be the proportion of stars. Our main theorem states: if $p^{(k)}_1(T_n) \to 0$ for a sequence of trees $T_1,T_2,\ldots$ whose size tends to infinity, then $p^{(k)}_2(T_n) \to 1$. Both are also shown to be equivalent to the statement that the number of $k$-vertex subtrees grows superlinearly and the statement that t…
Recently L. B. Beasley introduced $(2,3)$-cordial labelings of directed graphs in [1]. He made two conjectures which we resolve in this article. He conjectured that every orientation of a path of length at least five is $(2,3)$ cordial, and that every tree of max degree $n =3$ has a cordial orientation. We show these two conjectures to be false. We also discuss the $(2,3)$ cordiality of orientations of the Petersen graph, and establish an upper bound for the number of edges a graph can have and still be $(2,3)$ cordial. An application of $(2,3)$ cordial labelings is also presented.
A shortcut of a directed path $v_1 v_2 \cdots v_n$ is an edge $v_iv_j$ with $j > i+1$. If $j = i+2$ the shortcut is called a hop. If all hops are present, the path is called hop complete, so the path and its hops form a square of a path. We prove that every tournament with $n \ge 4$ vertices has a Hamiltonian path with at least $(4n-10)/7$ hops, and has a hop complete path of order at least $n^{0.295}$. A spanning binary tree of a tournament is a spanning shortcut tree if for every vertex of the tree, all its left descendants are in-neighbors and all its right descendants are out-neighbors. It…
Hex-trees are identified as a particular instance of weighted unary-binary trees. The Horton-Strahler numbers of these objects are revisited, and, thanks to a substitution that is not immediately intuitive, explicit results are possible. They are augmented by asymptotic evaluations as well. Furthermore, marked ordered trees (in bijection to skew Dyck paths) are investigated, followed 3-Motzkin paths and multi-edge trees. The underlying theme is sequence A002212 in the Encyclopedia of integer sequences.
We present some exact expressions for the number of paths of a given length in a perfect $m$-ary tree. We first count the paths in perfect rooted $m$-ary trees and then use the results to determine the number of paths in perfect unrooted $m$-ary trees, extending a known result for binary trees.
For a connected graph, a path containing all vertices is known as \emph{Hamiltonian path}. For general graphs, there is no known necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of Hamiltonian paths and the complexity of finding a Hamiltonian path in general graphs is NP-Complete. We present a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of Hamiltonian paths in 2-trees. Using our characterization, we also present a linear-time algorithm for the existence of Hamiltonian paths in 2-trees. Our characterization is based on a deep understanding of the structure of 2-trees and the combin…
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…
In this work we answer an open question asked by Johnson--Scoville. We show that each merge tree is represented by a discrete Morse function on a path. Furthermore, we present explicit constructions for two different but related kinds of discrete Morse functions on paths that induce any given merge tree. A refinement of the used methods allows us to define notions of equivalence of discrete Morse functions on trees which give rise to a bijection between equivalence classes of discrete Morse functions and isomorphism classes of certain labeled merge trees. We also compare our results to similar…
The notion of friendliness between trees first appeared in solution of Lando's problem on intersection of polyhedra in 3-space. A tree is friendly to a path graph if edges of the tree can be numbered so that for each k,s the path between the edges k and k+1 contains either both or none of the edges k+2s,k+2s+1. Theorem. If a tree contains a path containing all vertices of degree greater than 2, then the tree is friendly to a path graph. We also prove another sufficient condition for friendliness to a path graph and a criterion for friendliness between trees, one of which has diameter 3.
Let $Γ$ be a rooted tree and let $t$ be a positive integer. We study algebraic invariants and properties of the path ideal generated by monomial corresponding to paths of length $(t-1)$ in $Γ$. In particular, we give a recursive formula to compute the graded Betti numbers, a general bound for the regularity, an explicit computation of the linear strand, and we characterize when this path ideal has a linear resolution.
A partial order is universal if it contains every countable partial order as a suborder. In 2017, Fiala, Hubička, Long and Nešetřil showed that every interval in the homomorphism order of graphs is universal, with the only exception being the trivial gap $[K_1,K_2]$. We consider the homomorphism order restricted to the class of oriented paths and trees. We show that every interval between two oriented paths or oriented trees of height at least 4 is universal. The exceptional intervals coincide for oriented paths and trees and are contained in the class of oriented paths of height at most 3, wh…
We investigate path-, ray- and branch spaces of trees, certain topological spaces naturally associated with order theoretic trees, and provide topological characterisations for these spaces in terms of the existence of certain kinds of (sub-)bases. Our results yield a solution to a problem due to Diestel from 1992, by establishing the following equivalences for any Hausdorff space $X$: (1) $X$ is homeomorphic to the end space of a graph, (2) $X$ is homeomorphic to the ray space of a special order tree, (3) $X$ admits a nested clopen subbase that is noetherian, hereditarily complete and $σ$-dis…
A path cover is a decomposition of the edges of a graph into edge-disjoint simple paths. Gallai conjectured that every connected $n$-vertex graph has a path cover with at most $\lceil n/2 \rceil$ paths. We prove Gallai's conjecture for series-parallel graphs. For the class of planar 3-trees we show how to construct a path cover with at most $\lfloor 5n/8 \rfloor$ paths, which is an improvement over the best previously known bound of $\lfloor 2n/3 \rfloor$.
Refining a classical proof of Whitney, we show that any $4$-connected planar triangulation can be decomposed into a Hamiltonian path and two trees. Therefore, every $4$-connected planar graph decomposes into three forests, one having maximum degree at most $2$. We use this result to show that any Hamiltonian planar triangulation can be decomposed into two trees and one spanning tree of maximum degree at most $3$. These decompositions improve the result of Gonçalves [Covering planar graphs with forests, one having bounded maximum degree. J. Comb. Theory, Ser. B, 100(6):729--739, 2010] that ever…
The path ideal (of length t >=2) of a graph G is the monomial ideal, denoted I_t(G), whose generators correspond to the directed paths of length t in G. We study some of the algebraic properties of I_t(G) when G is a tree. We first show that I_t(G) is the facet ideal of a simplicial tree. As a consequence, the quotient ring R/I_t(G) is always sequentially Cohen-Macaulay, and the Betti numbers of R/I_t(G) do not depend upon the characteristic of the field. We study the case of the line graph in greater detail at the end of the paper.
The LR-drawing-method is a method of drawing an ordered rooted binary tree based on drawing one root-to-leaf path on a vertical line and attaching recursively obtained drawings of the subtrees on the left and right. In this paper, we study how to generalize this drawing-method to trees of higher arity. We first prove that (with some careful modifications) the proof of existence of a special root-to-leaf path transfers to trees of higher arity. Then we use such paths to obtain generalized LR-drawings of trees of arbitrary arity.
In this paper we consider the directed path-width and directed tree-width of recursively defined digraphs. As an important combinatorial tool, we show how the directed path-width and the directed tree-width can be computed for the disjoint union, order composition, directed union, and series composition of two directed graphs. These results imply the equality of directed path-width and directed tree-width for all digraphs which can be defined by these four operations. This allows us to show a linear-time solution for computing the directed path-width and directed tree-width of all these digrap…
We study the heavy path decomposition of conditional Galton-Watson trees. In a standard Galton-Watson tree conditional on its size $n$, we order all children by their subtree sizes, from large (heavy) to small. A node is marked if it is among the $k$ heaviest nodes among its siblings. Unmarked nodes and their subtrees are removed, leaving only a tree of marked nodes, which we call the $k$-heavy tree. We study various properties of these trees, including their size and the maximal distance from any original node to the $k$-heavy tree. In particular, under some moment condition, the $2$-heavy tr…