We study pairs of graphs (H_1,H_2) such that every graph with the densities of H_1 and H_2 close to the densities of H_1 and H_2 in a random graph is quasirandom; such pairs (H_1,H_2) are called forcing. Non-bipartite forcing pairs were first discovered by Conlon, Han, Person and Schacht [Weak quasi-randomness for uniform hypergraphs, Random Structures Algorithms 40 (2012), 1-38]: they showed that (K_t,F) is forcing where F is the graph that arises from K_t by iteratively doubling its vertices and edges in a prescribed way t times. Reiher and Schacht [Forcing quasirandomness with triangles, Forum of Mathematics, Sigma 7, 2019] strengthened this result for t=3 by proving that two doublings suffice and asked for the minimum number of doublings needed for t>3. We show that (t+2)/2 doublings always suffice.
In this paper we introduce a class of regular bipartite graphs whose biadjacency matrices are circulant matrices and we describe some of their properties. Notably, we compute upper and lower bounds for the zero forcing number for such a graph based only on the parameters that describe its biadjacency matrix. The main results of the paper characterize the bipartite circulant graphs that achieve equality in the lower bound.
The global forcing number of a graph G is the minimal cardinality of an edge subset discriminating all perfect matchings of G, denoted by gf(G). For any perfect matching M of G, the minimal cardinality of an edge subset S in E(G)-M such that G-S has a unique perfect matching is called the anti-forcing number of M,denoted by af(G, M). The maximum anti-forcing number of G among all perfect matchings is denoted by Af(G). It is known that the maximum anti-forcing number of a hexagonal system equals the famous Fries number. We are interested in some comparisons between the global forcing number and…
The anti-forcing number of a perfect matching $M$ of a graph $G$ is the minimal number of edges not in $M$ whose removal to make $M$ as a unique perfect matching of the resulting graph. The set of anti-forcing numbers of all perfect matchings of $G$ is the anti-forcing spectrum of $G$. In this paper, we characterize the plane elementary bipartite graph whose minimum anti-forcing number is one. We show that the maximum anti-forcing number of a graph is at most its cyclomatic number. In particular, we characterize the graphs with the maximum anti-forcing number achieving the upper bound, such ex…
Let $G$ be a simple graph with $2n$ vertices and a perfect matching. We denote by $f(G)$ and $F(G)$ the minimum and maximum forcing number of $G$, respectively. Hetyei obtained that the maximum number of edges of graphs $G$ with a unique perfect matching is $n^2$. We know that $G$ has a unique perfect matching if and only if $f(G)=0$. Along this line, we generalize the classical result to all graphs $G$ with $f(G)=k$ for $0\leq k\leq n-1$, and characterize corresponding extremal graphs as well. Hence we get a non-trivial lower bound of $f(G)$ in terms of the order and size. For bipartite graph…
Harary et al. and Klein and Randic proposed the forcing number of a perfect matching in mathematics and chemistry, respectively. In detail, the forcing number of a perfect matching M of a graph G is the smallest cardinality of subsets of M that are contained in no other perfect matchings of G. The author and cooperators defined the forcing polynomial of G as the count polynomial for perfect matchings with the same forcing number of G, from which the average forcing number, forcing spectrum, and the maximum and minimum forcing numbers of G can be obtained. Up to now, a few papers have been cons…
Let $G$ be a graph, and $Z$ a subset of its vertices, which we color black, while the remaining are colored white. We define the skew color change rule as follows: if $u$ is a vertex of $G$, and exactly one of its neighbors $v$, is white, then change the color of $v$ to black. A set $Z$ is a skew zero forcing set for $G$ if the application of the skew color change rule (as many times as necessary) will result in all the vertices in $G$ colored black. A set $Z$ is a minimum skew zero forcing set for $G$ if it is a skew zero forcing set for $G$ of least cardinality. The skew zero forcing number …
Let $G$ be a simple graph with $2n$ vertices and a perfect matching. The forcing number $f(G,M)$ of a perfect matching $M$ of $G$ is the smallest cardinality of a subset of $M$ that is contained in no other perfect matching of $G$. Among all perfect matchings $M$ of $G$, the minimum and maximum values of $f(G,M)$ are called the minimum and maximum forcing numbers of $G$, denoted by $f(G)$ and $F(G)$, respectively. Then $f(G)\leq F(G)\leq n-1$. Che and Chen (2011) proposed an open problem: how to characterize the graphs $G$ with $f(G)=n-1$. Later they showed that for a bipartite graph $G$, $f(G…
We study forcing pairs for quasirandom graphs. Chung, Graham, and Wilson initiated the study of families $\\mathcal F$ of graphs with the property that if a large graph $G$ has approximately homomorphism density $p^{e(F)}$ for some fixed $p\in(0,1]$ for every $F\in \mathcal F$, then $G$ is quasirandom with density $p$. Such families $\mathcal F$ are said to be forcing. Several forcing families were found over the last three decades and characterising all bipartite graphs $F$ such that $(K_2,F)$ is a forcing pair is a well-known open problem in the area of quasirandom graphs, which is closely r…
A subset $S$ of initially infected vertices of a graph $G$ is called forcing if we can infect the entire graph by iteratively applying the following process. At each step, any infected vertex which has a unique uninfected neighbour, infects this neighbour. The forcing number of $G$ is the minimum cardinality of a forcing set in $G$. In the present paper, we study the forcing number of various classes of graphs, including graphs of large girth, $H$-free graphs for a fixed bipartite graph $H$, random and pseudorandom graphs.
It is well-known that the zero forcing number of a graph provides a lower bound on the minimum rank of a graph. In this paper we bound and characterize the zero forcing number of certain circulant graphs, including some bipartite circulants, cubic circulants, and circulants which are torus products, to obtain bounds on the minimum rank and the maximum nullity. We also evaluate when the zero forcing number will give equality.
Motivated in part by an observation that the zero forcing number for the complement of a tree on $n$ vertices is either $n-3$ or $n-1$ in one exceptional case, we consider the zero forcing number for the complement of more general graphs under some conditions, particularly those that do not contain complete bipartite subgraphs. We also move well beyond trees and completely study all of the possible zero forcing numbers for the complements of unicyclic graphs and cactus graphs.
Let $G=(V,E)$ be a finite connected graph along with a coloring of the vertices of $G$ using the colors in a given set $X$. In this paper, we introduce multi-color forcing, a generalization of zero-forcing on graphs, and give conditions in which the multi-color forcing process terminates regardless of the number of colors used. We give an upper bound on the number of steps required to terminate a forcing procedure in terms of the number of vertices in the graph on which the procedure is being applied. We then focus on multi-color forcing with three colors and analyze the end states of certain …
We define the anti-forcing number of a perfect matching $M$ of a graph $G$ as the minimal number of edges of $G$ whose deletion results in a subgraph with a unique perfect matching $M$, denoted by $af(G,M)$. The anti-forcing number of a graph proposed by Vukičević and Trinajstić in Kekulé structures of molecular graphs is in fact the minimum anti-forcing number of perfect matchings. For plane bipartite graph $G$ with a perfect matching $M$, we obtain a minimax result: $af(G,M)$ equals the maximal number of $M$-alternating cycles of $G$ where any two either are disjoint or intersect only at edg…
We prove several new sufficient conditions for hamiltonicity and bipancyclicity in balanced bipartite digraphs, in terms of sums of degrees over dominating or dominated pairs of vertices.
Erdős, Füredi, Rothschild and Sós initiated a study of classes of graphs that forbid every induced subgraph on a given number $m$ of vertices and number $f$ of edges. Extending their notation to $r$-graphs, we write $(n,e) \to_r (m,f)$ if every $r$-graph $G$ on $n$ vertices with $e$ edges has an induced subgraph on $m$ vertices and $f$ edges. The \emph{forcing density} of a pair $(m,f)$ is $$ σ_r(m,f) =\left. \limsup\limits_{n \to \infty} \frac{|\{e : (n,e) \to_r (m,f)\}|}{\binom{n}{r}} \right. .$$ In the graph setting it is known that there are infinitely many pairs $(m, f)$ with positive for…
We present a sufficient condition for a pair of finite integer sequences to be degree sequences of a bipartite graph, based only on the lengths of the sequences and their largest and smallest elements.
Mader first proved that high average degree forces a given graph as a minor. Often motivated by Hadwiger's Conjecture, much research has focused on the average degree required to force a complete graph as a minor. Subsequently, various authors have consider the average degree required to force an arbitrary graph $H$ as a minor. Here, we strengthen (under certain conditions) a recent result by Reed and Wood, giving better bounds on the average degree required to force an $H$-minor when $H$ is a sparse graph with many high degree vertices. This solves an open problem of Reed and Wood, and also g…
We investigate the terminal-pairability problem in the case when the base graph is a complete bipartite graph, and the demand graph is a (not necessarily bipartite) multigraph on the same vertex set. In computer science, this problem is known as the edge-disjoint paths problem. We improve the lower bound on the maximum value of $Δ(D)$ which still guarantees that the demand graph $D$ has a realization in $K_{n,n}$. We also solve the extremal problem on the number of edges, i.e., we determine the maximum number of edges which guarantees that a demand graph is realizable in $K_{n,n}$.
We investigate the terminal-pairibility problem in the case when the base graph is a complete bipartite graph, and the demand graph is also bipartite with the same color classes. We improve the lower bound on maximum value of $Δ(D)$ which still guarantees that the demand graph $D$ is terminal-pairable in this setting. We also prove a sharp theorem on the maximum number of edges such a demand graph can have.
We study inheritance of path-pairability in the Cartesian product of graphs, and prove different (such as additive and multiplicative) inheritance patterns of path-pairability, depending on the size of the Cartesian product. We present path-pairable graph families, that improve the known upper bound on the minimal maximum degree of a path-pairable graph. Further results and open questions about path-pairability are also presented.
There is interesting internal structure in the nullspaces of graph and hypergraph adjacency matrices, especially for trees, bipartite graphs, and related combinatorial classes. The zero loci of nullvectors, i.e., their zero coordinates' indices, encode information about matchings, coverings, and edges' influence on rank. This set system is the lattice of flats of a ``kernel matroid'', a subsystem of which are the ``stalled'' sets closed under skew zero forcing (SZF), a graph percolation/infection model known to have connections with rank and nullity. For a wide variety of graphs, the lattice o…
Bipartite Graphs Are Not Well-Quasi-Ordered by Bipartite Minors
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo（滑铁卢大学 David R. Cheriton 计算机科学学院）；Department of Applied Mathematics, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University（查理大学数学物理学院应用数学系）
A pair of sequences of natural numbers is called planar if there exists a simple, bipartite, planar graph for which the given sequences are the degree sequences of its parts. For a pair to be planar, the sums of the sequences have to be equal and Euler's inequality must be satisfied. Pairs that verify these two necessary conditions are called Eulerian. We prove that a pair of constant sequences is planar if and only if it is Eulerian (such pairs can be easily listed) and is different from $(3^5 \, | \, 3^5)$ and $(3^{25} \, | \, 5^{15})$.
In this paper, we show that the resonance graph of a plane elementary bipartite graph $G$ can be obtained from an edge by a sequence of peripheral convex expansions with respect to a reducible face decomposition of $G$ if and only if the infinite face of $G$ is forcing.
In this paper we investigate the bipartite analogue of the strong Erdos-Hajnal property. We prove that for every forest $H$ and every $τ>0$ there exists $ε>0$, such that if $G$ has a bipartition $(A,B)$ and does not contain $H$ as an induced subgraph, and has at most $(1-τ)|A|\cdot|B|$ edges, then there is a stable set in $G$ that contains at least $ε|V_i|$ vertices of $V_i$, for $i=1,2$. No graphs $H$ except forests have this property.
Let $G$ denote a bipartite graph with $e$ edges without isolated vertices. It was known that the spectral radius of $G$ is at most the square root of $e$, and the upper bound is attained if and only if $G$ is a complete bipartite graph. Suppose that $G$ is not a complete bipartite graph, and $e-1$ and $e+1$ are not twin primes. We determine the maximal spectral radius of $G$. As a byproduct of our study, we obtain a spectral characterization of a pair $(e-1, e+1)$ of integers to be a pair of twin primes.
Several researchers have recently explored various graph parameters that can or cannot be characterized by the spectrum of a matrix associated with a graph. In this paper we show that several NP-hard zero forcing numbers are not characterized by the spectra of several types of associated matrices with a graph. In particular, we consider standard zero forcing, positive semidefinite zero forcing, and skew zero forcing, and provide constructions of infinite families of pairs of cospectral graphs which have different values for these numbers. We explore several methods for obtaining these cospectr…
Given a simple undirected graph $G$ and a positive integer $k$, the $k$-forcing number of $G$, denoted $F_k(G)$, is the minimum number of vertices that need to be initially colored so that all vertices eventually become colored during the discrete dynamical process described by the following rule. Starting from an initial set of colored vertices and stopping when all vertices are colored: if a colored vertex has at most $k$ non-colored neighbors, then each of its non-colored neighbors becomes colored. When $k=1$, this is equivalent to the zero forcing number, usually denoted with $Z(G)$, a rec…
We prove two sharp sufficient conditions for hamiltonian cycles in balanced bipartite directed graph. Let $D$ be a strongly connected balanced bipartite directed graph of order $2a$. Let $x,y$ be distinct vertices in $D$. $\{x,y\}$ dominates a vertex $z$ if $x\rightarrow z$ and $y\rightarrow z$; in this case, we call the pair $\{x,y\}$ dominating. (i) {\it If $a\geq 4$ and $max \{d(x), d(y)\}\geq 2a-1$ for every dominating pair of vertices $\{x,y\}$, then either $D$ is hamiltonian or $D$ is isomorphic to one exceptional digraph of order eight.} (ii) {\it If $a\geq 5$ and $d(x)+d(y)\geq 4a-3$ f…
A \emph{directional labeling} of an edge $\emph{uv}$ in a graph $G=(V,E)$ by an ordered pair $ab$ is a labeling of the edge $uv$ such that the label on $uv$ in the direction from $u$ to $v$ is $\ell(uv)=ab$, and $\ell(vu)=ba$. New characterizations of 2-colorable (bipartite) and 3-colorable graphs are obtained in terms of directional labeling of edges of a graph by ordered pairs $ab$ and $ba$. In addition we obtain characterizations of 2-colorable and 3-colorable graphs in terms of matrices called directional adjacency matrices.
It is shown that a hamiltonian $n/2$-regular bipartite graph $G$ of order $2n>8$ contains a cycle of length $2n-2$. Moreover, if such a cycle can be chosen to omit a pair of adjacent vertices, then $G$ is bipancyclic.
Let $D$ be a strongly connected balanced bipartite directed graph of order $2a\geq 10$ other than a directed cycle. Let $x,y$ be distinct vertices in $D$. $\{x,y\}$ dominates a vertex $z$ if $x\rightarrow z$ and $y\rightarrow z$; in this case, we call the pair $\{x,y\}$ dominating. In this paper we prove: If $ max\{d(x), d(y)\}\geq 2a-2$ for every dominating pair of vertices $\{x,y\}$, then $D$ contains cycles of all lengths $2,4, \ldots , 2a-2$ or $D$ is isomorphic to a certain digraph of order ten which we specify.
A global forcing set for maximal matchings of a graph $G=(V(G), E(G))$ is a set $S \subseteq E(G)$ such that $M_1\cap S \neq M_2 \cap S$ for each pair of maximal matchings $M_1$ and $M_2$ of $G$. The smallest such set is called a minimum global forcing set, its size being the global forcing number for maximal matchings $ϕ_{gm}(G)$ of $G$. In this paper, we establish lower and upper bounds on the forcing number for maximal matchings of the corona product of graphs. We also introduce an integer linear programming model for computing the forcing number for maximal matchings of graphs.
The neighborhood of a pair of vertices $u,v$ in a triple system is the set of vertices $w$ such that $uvw$ is an edge. A triple system $\HH$ is semi-bipartite if its vertex set contains a vertex subset $X$ such that every edge of $\HH$ intersects $X$ in exactly two points. It is easy to see that if $\HH$ is semi-bipartite, then the neighborhood of every pair of vertices in $\HH$ is an independent set. We show a partial converse of this statement by proving that almost all triple systems with vertex sets $[n]$ and independent neighborhoods are semi-bipartite. Our result can be viewed as an exte…
Let $D$ be a strongly connected balanced bipartite directed graph of order $2a\geq 10$. Let $x,y$ be distinct vertices in $D$. $\{x,y\}$ dominates a vertex $z$ if $x\rightarrow z$ and $y\rightarrow z$; in this case, we call the pair $\{x,y\}$ dominating. In this paper we prove: {\it If the underlying undirected graph of $D$ is not 2-connected and $max\{d(x), d(y)\}\geq 2a-2$ for every dominating pair of vertices $\{x,y\}$, then $D$ contains a cycle of length $2a-2$ unless $D$ is isomorphic to a certain digraph of order ten which we specify.
Let $D$ be a strongly connected balanced bipartite directed graph of order $2a\geq 4$. Let $x,y$ be distinct vertices in $D$. $\{x,y\}$ dominates a vertex $z$ if $x\rightarrow z$ and $y\rightarrow z$; in this case, we call the pair $\{x,y\}$ dominating. In this paper we prove: (i). If $a\geq 4$ and $ max\{d(x), d(y)\}\geq 2a-1$ for every dominating pair of vertices $\{x,y\}$, $D$ then contains a cycle of length $2a-2$ or $D$ is a directed cycle. (ii). If $D$ contains a cycle of length $2a-2\geq 6$ and $max \{d(x), d(y)\}\geq 2a-2$ for every dominating pair of vertices $\{x,y\}$, then for any $…
We say that a bipartite graph $G(A, B)$ with fixed parts $A$, $B$ is proximinal if there is a semimetric space $(X, d)$ such that $A$ and $B$ are disjoint proximinal subsets of $X$ and all edges $\{a, b\}$ satisfy the equality $d(a, b) = \operatorname{dist}(A, B)$. It is proved that a bipartite graph $G$ is not isomorphic to any proximinal graph iff $G$ is finite and empty. It is also shown that the subgraph induced by all non-isolated vertices of a nonempty bipartite graph $G$ is a disjoint union of complete bipartite graphs iff $G$ is isomorphic to a nonempty proximinal graph for an ultramet…
There is a concept in linear algebra called a tridiagonal pair. The concept was motivated by the theory of $Q$-polynomial distance-regular graphs. We give a tutorial introduction to tridiagonal pairs, working with a special case as a concrete example. The special case is called totally bipartite, or TB. Starting from first principles, we give an elementary but comprehensive account of TB tridiagonal pairs. The following topics are discussed: (i) the notion of a TB tridiagonal system; (ii) the eigenvalue array; (iii) the standard basis and matrix representations; (iv) the intersection numbers; …
The strong geodetic problem is a recent variation of the classical geodetic problem. For a graph $G$, its strong geodetic number ${\rm sg}(G)$ is the cardinality of a smallest vertex subset $S$, such that each vertex of $G$ lies on one fixed geodesic between a pair of vertices from $S$. In this paper, some general properties of the strong geodesic problem are studied, especially in connection with diameter of a graph. The problem is also solved for balanced complete bipartite graphs.
The strong geodetic number, $\text{sg}(G),$ of a graph $G$ is the smallest number of vertices such that by fixing one geodesic between each pair of selected vertices, all vertices of the graph are covered. In this paper, the study of the strong geodetic number of complete bipartite graphs is continued. The formula for $\text{sg}(K_{n,m})$ is given, as well as a formula for the crown graphs $S_n^0$. Bounds on $\text{sg}(Q_n)$ are also discussed.
We introduce two operators on stable configurations of the sandpile model that provide an algorithmic bijection between recurrent and parking configurations. This bijection preserves their equivalence classes with respect to the sandpile group. The study of these operators in the special case of the complete bipartite graph ${K}_{m,n}$ naturally leads to a generalization of the well known Cyclic Lemma of Dvoretsky and Motzkin, via pairs of periodic bi-infinite paths in the plane having slightly different slopes. We achieve our results by interpreting the action of these operators as an action …
The main eigenvalues of a graph $G$ are those eigenvalues of the $(0,1)$-adjacency matrix $\mathbf A$ having a corresponding eigenvector not orthogonal to $\mathbf j = (1,\dots,1)$. The CDC of a graph $G$ is the direct product $G\times K_2$. The main eigenspace of $\mathbf A$ is generated by the principal main eigenvectors and is the same as the image of the walk matrix. A hierarchy of properties of pairs of graphs is established in view of their CDC's, walk matrices, main eigenvalues, eigenvectors and eigenspaces. We determine by algorithm that there are 32 pairs of non-isomorphic graphs on a…
