We present formulas to compute the P3-geodetic number, the P3-hull number and the percolation time for a caterpillar, in terms of certain sequences associated with it. In addition, we find a connection between the percolation time of a unit interval graph and a parameter involving the diameter of a unit interval graph related to it. Finally, we present a hereditary graph class, defined by forbidden induced subgraphs, such that its percolation time is equal to one.
A caterpillar tree is a connected, acyclic, graph in which all vertices are either a member of a central path, or joined to that central path by a single edge. In other words, caterpillar trees are the class of trees which become path graphs after removing all leaves. In 1973, F. Harary and A.J. Schwenk provided two proofs found in [1] which show that the number of non-isomorphic caterpillars with N vertices is given by the formula $2^{N-4} + \ 2^{ \lfloor \frac{N - 4}{2}\rfloor}$, where $\lfloor \ \rfloor$ denotes the floor function. The first proof follows from a special case of an applicati…
A long-standing conjecture on spanning trees of a hypercube states that a balanced tree on $2^n$ vertices with maximum degree at most $3$ spans the hypercube of dimension $n$ \cite{havel1986}. In this paper, we settle the conjecture for a special family of binary trees. A $0$-caterpillar is a path. For $k\geq 1$, a $k$-caterpillar is a binary tree consisting of a path with $j$-caterpillars $(0\leq j\leq k-1)$ emanating from some of the vertices on the path. A $k$-caterpillar that contains a perfect matching is said to be perfectly balanced. In this paper, we show that a perfectly balanced $2$-…
Given a simple graph $G$ with $n$ vertices and a natural number $i \leq n$, let $L_G(i)$ be the maximum number of leaves that can be realized by an induced subtree $T$ of $G$ with $i$ vertices. We introduce a problem that we call the \emph{leaf realization problem}, which consists in deciding whether, for a given sequence of $n+1$ natural numbers $(\ell_0, \ell_1, \ldots, \ell_n)$, there exists a simple graph $G$ with $n$ vertices such that $\ell_i = L_G(i)$ for $i = 0, 1, \ldots, n$. We present basic observations on the structure of these sequences for general graphs and trees. In the particu…
The family of all $k$-independent sets of a graph containing a fixed vertex $v$ is called a {star} and $v$ is called its center. Stars are interesting for their relation to Erdös-Ko-Rado graphs. Hurlbert and Kamat conjectured that in trees the largest stars are centered in leafs. This conjecture was disproven independently by Baber, Borg, and Feghali, Johnson, and Thomas. In this paper we introduce a tool to bound the size of stars centered at certain vertices by stars centered at leafs. We use this tool to show that caterpillars and sunlet graphs satisfy Hurlbert and Kamat's conjecture, and t…
For a graph $G$, the $\ell$-deck of $G$ is the multiset of induced subgraphs on $G$ having $\ell$ vertices. Recently, Groenland et al. proved that any tree can be reconstructed from its $(8/9+o(1))n$-deck. For the particular case of caterpillar graphs, we show that the $(1/2+o(1))n$-deck suffices, which is asymptotically tight.
In this paper, we consider the edge disjoint caterpillar realizations of tree degree sequences. We give the necessary and sufficient conditions when two tree degree sequences have edge disjoint caterpillar realizations. We conjecture that an arbitrary number of tree degree sequences have edge disjoint realizations if every vertex is a leaf in at most one tree. We prove that the conjecture is true if the number of tree degree sequences is at most $4$. We also prove that the conjecture is true if $n \ge \max\{22k-11, 396\}$, where $n$ is the number of vertices and $k$ is the number of tree degre…
An antimagic labeling of a directed graph $D$ with $m$ arcs is a bijection from the set of arcs of $D$ to $\{1,\dots,m\}$ such that all oriented vertex sums of vertices in $D$ are pairwise distinct, where the oriented vertex sum of a vertex $u$ is the sum of labels of all arcs entering $u$ minus the sum of labels of all arcs leaving $u$. Hefetz, Mütze, and Schwartz conjectured that every connected graph admits an antimagic orientation, where an antimagic orientation of a graph $G$ is an orientation of $G$ which has an antimagic labeling. We use a constructive technique to prove that caterpilla…
Let $T$ be a tree such that all its vertices of degree more than two lie on one path, that is, $T$ is a caterpillar subdivision. We prove that there exists $ε>0$ such that for every graph $G$ with $|V(G)|\ge 2$ not containing $T$ as an induced subgraph, either some vertex has at least $ε|V(G)|$ neighbours, or there are two disjoint sets of vertices $A,B$, both of cardinality at least $ε|V(G)|$, where there is no edge joining $A$ and $B$. A consequence is: for every caterpillar subdivision $T$, there exists $c>0$ such that for every graph $G$ containing neither of $T$ and its complement as an i…
For a connected graph $G:=(V,E)$, the Steiner distance $d_G(X)$ among a set of vertices $X$ is the minimum size among all the connected subgraphs of $G$ whose vertex set contains $X$. The $k-$Steiner distance matrix $D_k(G)$ of $G$ is a matrix whose rows and columns are indexed by $k-$subsets of $V$. For $k$-subsets $X_1$ and $X_2$, the $(X_1,X_2)-$entry of $D_k(G)$ is $d_G(X_1 \cup X_2)$. In this paper, we show that the rank of $2-$Steiner distance matrix of a caterpillar graph on $N$ vertices and with $p$ pendant veritices is $2N-p-1$.
Let $m\ge 1$ be an integer and $G$ be a graph with $m$ edges. We say that $G$ has an antimagic orientation if $G$ has an orientation $D$ and a bijection $τ:A(D)\rightarrow \{1,2,\ldots,m\}$ such that no two vertices in $D$ have the same vertex-sum under $τ$, where the vertex-sum of a vertex $v$ in $D$ under $τ$ is the sum of labels of all arcs entering $v$ minus the sum of labels of all arcs leaving $v$. Hefetz, Mütze and Schwartz [J. Graph Theory, 64: 219-232, 2010] conjectured that every connected graph admits an antimagic orientation. The conjecture was confirmed for certain classes of grap…
In response to a well-known open question ``Does every complete geometric graph on $2n\/$ vertices have a partition of its edge set into $n\/$ plane spanning trees?" we provide an affirmative answer when the complete geometry graph is in the regular wheel configuration. Also we present sufficient conditions for the complete geometric graph on $2n\/$ vertices to have a partition of its edge set into $n\/$ plane spanning trees (which are double stars, caterpillars or $ w\/$-caterpillars).
The caterpillar associahedron $\mathcal{A}(G)$ is a polytope arising from the rotation graph of search trees on a caterpillar tree $G$, generalizing the rotation graph of binary search trees (BSTs) and thus the conventional associahedron. We show that the diameter of $\mathcal{A}(G)$ is $Θ(n + m \cdot (H+1))$, where $n$ is the number of vertices, $m$ is the number of leaves, and $H$ is the entropy of the leaf distribution of $G$. Our proofs reveal a strong connection between caterpillar associahedra and searching in BSTs. We prove the lower bound using Wilber's first lower bound for dynamic BS…
The independence polynomial $I(G, x)$ of a graph $G$ is the polynomial in variable $x$ in which the coefficient $a_n$ on $x^n$ gives the number of independent subsets $S \subseteq V(G)$ of vertices of $G$ such that $|S| = n$. $I(G, x)$ is unimodal if there is an index $μ$ such that that $a_0 \leq a_1 \leq$...$\leq a_{μ-1} \leq a_μ \geq a_{μ+1} \geq$...$\geq a_{d-1} \geq a_d$ While the independence polynomials of many families of graphs with highly regular structure are known to be unimodal, little is known about less regularly structured graphs. We analyze the independence polynomials of a lar…
The burning number is a recently introduced graph parameter indicating the spreading speed of content in a graph through its edges. While the conjectured upper bound on the necessary numbers of time steps until all vertices are reached is proven for some specific graph classes it remains open for trees in general. We present two different proofs for ordinary caterpillars and prove the conjecture for a generalised version of caterpillars and for trees with a sufficient amount of leaves. Furthermore, determining the burning number for spider graphs, trees with maximum degree three and path-fores…
In this paper, we obtain upper bounds for the geometric Ramsey numbers of trees. We prove that $R_c(T_n,H_m)=(n-1)(m-1)+1$ if $T_n$ is a caterpillar and $H_m$ is a Hamiltonian outerplanar graph on $m$ vertices. Moreover, if $T_n$ has at most two non-leaf vertices, then $R_g(T_n,H_m)=(n-1)(m-1)+1$. We also prove that $R_c(T_n,H_m)=O(n^2m)$ and $R_g(T_n,H_m)=O(n^3m^2)$ if $T_n$ is an arbitrary tree on $n$ vertices and $H_m$ is an outerplanar triangulation with pathwidth 2. %Further, we prove a uniform polynomial upper bound for the geometric Ramsey numbers of caterpillars and we also give an upp…
A maximum sequence $S$ of vertices in a graph $G$, so that every vertex in $S$ has a neighbor which is independent, or is itself independent, from all previous vertices in $S$, is called a Grundy dominating sequence. The Grundy domination number, $γ_{gr}(G)$, is the length of $S$. We show that for any forest $F$, $γ_{gr}(F)=|V(T)|-|\mathcal{P}|$ where $\mathcal{P}$ is a minimum partition of the non-isolate vertices of $F$ into caterpillars in which if two caterpillars of $\mathcal{P}$ have an edge between them in $F$, then such an edge must be incident to a non-leaf vertex in at least one of t…
Let $p(m)$ (respectively, $q(m)$) be the maximum number $k$ such that any tree with $m$ edges can be transformed by contracting edges (respectively, by removing vertices) into a caterpillar with $k$ edges. We derive closed-form expressions for $p(m)$ and $q(m)$ for all $m \ge 1$. The two functions $p(n)$ and $q(n)$ can also be interpreted in terms of alternating paths among $n$ disjoint line segments in the plane, whose $2n$ endpoints are in convex position.
A caterpillar graph $T(p_1, \ldots, p_r)$ of order $n= r+\sum_{i=1}^r p_i$, $r\geq 2$, is a tree such that removing all its pendent vertices gives rise to a path of order $r$. In this paper we establish a necessary and sufficient condition for a real number to be an eigenvalue of the Randić matrix of $T(p_1, \ldots, p_r)$. This result is applied to determine the extremal caterpillars for the Randić energy of $T(p_1,\ldots, p_r)$ for cases $r=2$ (the double star) and $r=3$. We characterize the extremal caterpillars for $r=2$. Moreover, we study the family of caterpillars $T\big(p,n-p-q-3,q\big)…
We study the \emph{maximum differential coloring problem}, where the vertices of an $n$-vertex graph must be labeled with distinct numbers ranging from $1$ to $n$, so that the minimum absolute difference between two labels of any two adjacent vertices is maximized. As the problem is \NPH for general graphs~\cite{leung1984}, we consider planar graphs and subclasses thereof. We initially prove that the maximum differential coloring problem remains \NPH, even for planar graphs. Then, we present tight bounds for regular caterpillars and spider graphs. Using these new bounds, we prove that the Mill…
The class of $k$-star caterpillar convex bipartite graphs generalizes the class of convex bipartite graphs. For a bipartite graph with partitions $X$ and $Y$, we associate a $k$-star caterpillar on $X$ such that for each vertex in $Y$, its neighborhood induces a tree. The $k$-star caterpillar on $X$ is imaginary and if the imaginary structure is a path ($0$-star caterpillar), then it is the class of convex bipartite graphs. The minimum Steiner tree problem (STREE) is defined as follows: given a connected graph $G=(V,E)$ and a subset of vertices $R \subseteq V(G)$, the objective is to find a mi…
We introduce and study the 1-planar packing problem: Given $k$ graphs with $n$ vertices $G_1, \dots, G_k$, find a 1-planar graph that contains the given graphs as edge-disjoint spanning subgraphs. We mainly focus on the case when each $G_i$ is a tree and $k=3$. We prove that a triple consisting of three caterpillars or of two caterpillars and a path may not admit a 1-planar packing, while two paths and a special type of caterpillar always have one. We then study 1-planar packings with few crossings and prove that three paths (resp. cycles) admit a 1-planar packing with at most seven (resp. fou…
A set of vertices $S$ of a graph $G$ is a (geodesic)convex set, if $S$ contains all the vertices belonging to any shortest path connecting between two vertices of $S$. The cardinality of maximum proper convex set of $G$ is called the convexity number, con$(G)$ of $G$. The complementary prism $G\bar{G}$ of $G$ is obtained from the disjoint union of $G$ and its complement $\bar{G}$ by adding the edges of a perfect matching between them. In this work, we examine the convex sets of the complementary prism of a tree and derive formulas for the convexity numbers of the complementary prisms of all tr…
We study several enumeration problems connected to linear trees, a broad class which includes stars, paths, generalized stars, and caterpillars. We provide generating functions for counting the number of linear trees on $n$ vertices, characterize the asymptotic growth rate of the number of nonisomorphic linear trees, and show that the distribution of $k$-linear trees on $n$ vertices follows a central limit theorem.
An odd prime labeling is a variation of a prime labeling in which the vertices of a graph of order~$n$ are labeled with the distinct odd integers $1$ to $2n-1$ so that the labels of adjacent vertices are relatively prime. This paper investigates many different classes of graphs including disjoint unions of cycles, stacked prisms, and particular types of caterpillars, by using various methods to construct odd prime labelings. We also demonstrate progress toward proving a conjecture that all prime graphs have an odd prime labeling.
The celebrated Erdős-Hajnal conjecture states that for every proper hereditary graph class $\mathcal{G}$ there exists a constant $\varepsilon = \varepsilon(\mathcal{G}) > 0$ such that every graph $G \in \mathcal{G}$ contains a clique or an independent set of size $|V(G)|^\varepsilon$. Recently, there has been a growing interest in the symmetrized variant of this conjecture, where one additionally requires $\mathcal{G}$ to be closed under complementation. We show that any hereditary graph class that is closed under complementation and excludes a fixed caterpillar as an induced subgraph satisfie…
In this paper we present a complete characterization of the smallest sets which block all the simple perfect matchings in a complete convex geometric graph on $2m$ vertices. In particular, we show that all these sets are caterpillar graphs with a special structure, and that their total number is $m \cdot 2^{m-1}$.
We prove three results conjectured or stated by Chartrand, Fink and Zhang [European J. Combin {\bf 21} (2000) 181--189, Disc. Appl. Math. {\bf 116} (2002) 115--126, and pre-print of ``The hull number of an oriented graph'']. For a digraph $D$, Chartrand et al. defined the geodetic, hull and convexity number -- $g(D)$, $h(D)$ and $con(D)$, respectively. For an undirected graph $G$, $g^{-}(G)$ and $g^{+}(G)$ are the minimum and maximum geodetic numbers over all orientations of $G$, and similarly for $h^{-}(G)$, $h^{+}(G)$, $con^{-}(G)$ and $con^{+}(G)$. Chartrand and Zhang gave a proof that $g^{…
The vertex-deleted subgraph G-v, obtained from the graph G by deleting the vertex v and all edges incident to v, is called a card of G. The deck of G is the multiset of its unlabelled cards. The number of common cards b(G,H) of G and H is the cardinality of the multiset intersection of the decks of G and H. A supercard G+ of G and H is a graph whose deck contains at least one card isomorphic to G and at least one card isomorphic to H. We show how maximum sets of common cards of G and H correspond to certain sets of permutations of the vertices of a supercard, which we call maximum saturating s…
Many interesting problems are obtained by attempting to generalize classical results on convexity in Euclidean spaces to other convexity spaces, in particular to convexity spaces on graphs. In this paper we consider $P_3$-convexity on graphs. A set $U$ of vertices in a graph $G$ is $P_3$-convex if every vertex not in $U$ has at most one neighbour in $U$. More specifically, we consider Radon numbers for $P_3$-convexity in trees. Tverberg's theorem states that every set of $(k-1)(d+1)-1$ points in $\mathbb{R}^d$ can be partitioned into $k$ sets with intersecting convex hulls. As a special case o…
A graph G=(V,E) with m edges is graceful if it has a distinct vertex labeling f, a map from V into the set{0,1,2,3,...,m} which induces a distinct edge labeling |f(u)-f(v)| for edges uv in E. The famous Ringel-Kotzig conjecture (1964) is that all trees are graceful. The base of a tree T is obtained from T by deleting its one-degree vertices. A caterpillar is a tree whose base is a path and a lobster is a tree whose base is a caterpillar. Paths and caterpillars are known to be graceful. Next it was conjectured by Bermond (1979) that all lobsters are graceful. In this paper we describe various m…
A neighborhood-prime labeling of a graph is a variation of a prime labeling in which the vertices are assigned labels from $1$ to $|V(G)|$ such that the $\gcd$ of the labels in the neighborhood of each non-degree $1$ vertex is equal to $1$. In this paper, we examine neighborhood-prime labelings of several classes of graphs such as polygonal snakes and books, with a focus on trees including caterpillars, spiders, and firecrackers.
The bandwidth of a graph G is the minimum of the maximum difference between adjacent labels when the vertices have distinct integer labels. We provide a polynomial algorithm to produce an optimal bandwidth labeling for graphs in a special class of block graphs (graphs in which every block is a clique), namely those where deleting the vertices of degree one produces a path of cliques. The result is best possible in various ways. Furthermore, for two classes of graphs that are ``almost'' caterpillars, the bandwidth problem is NP-complete.
A walk $W$ between vertices $u$ and $v$ of a graph $G$ is called a {\em tolled walk between $u$ and $v$} if $u$, as well as $v$, has exactly one neighbour in $W$. A set $S \subseteq V(G)$ is {\em toll convex} if the vertices contained in any tolled walk between two vertices of $S$ are contained in $S$. The {\em toll convex hull of $S$} is the minimum toll convex set containing~$S$. The {\em toll hull number of $G$} is the minimum cardinality of a set $S$ such that the toll convex hull of $S$ is $V(G)$. The main contribution of this work is an algorithm for computing the toll hull number of a g…
An edge labeling of a connected graph $G = (V, E)$ is said to be local antimagic if it is a bijection $f:E \to\{1,\ldots ,|E|\}$ such that for any pair of adjacent vertices $x$ and $y$, $f^+(x)\not= f^+(y)$, where the induced vertex label $f^+(x)= \sum f(e)$, with $e$ ranging over all the edges incident to $x$. The local antimagic chromatic number of $G$, denoted by $χ_{la}(G)$, is the minimum number of distinct induced vertex labels over all local antimagic labelings of $G$. Let $χ(G)$ be the chromatic number of $G$. In this paper, sharp upper and lower bounds of $χ_{la}(G)$ for $G$ with pend…
For a tree $T$, let $i_T(t)$ be the number of independent sets of size $t$ in $T$. It is an open question, raised by Alavi, Malde, Schwenk and Erdős, whether the sequence $(i_T(t))_{t \geq 0}$ is always unimodal. Here we answer the question in the affirmative for some recursively defined families of trees, specifically paths with auxiliary trees dropped from the vertices in a periodic manner. In particular, extending a result of Wang and B.-X. Zhu, we show unimodality of the independent set sequence of a path on $2n$ vertices with $\ell_1$ and $\ell_2$ pendant edges dropped alternately from th…
Let $D$ be a connected oriented graph. A set $S \subseteq V(D)$ is convex in $D$ if, for every pair of vertices $x, y \in S$, the vertex set of every $xy$-geodesic, ($xy$ shortest directed path) and every $yx$-geodesic in $D$ is contained in $S$. The convexity number, ${\rm con}(D)$, of a non-trivial oriented graph, $D$, is the maximum cardinality of a proper convex set of $D$. The strong convexity spectrum of the graph $G$, $S_{SC} (G)$, is the set $\{{ \rm con}(D) \colon\ D {\rm \ is \ a \ strong \ orientation \ of \ } G \}$. In this paper we prove that the problem of determining the convexi…
The Gyarfas-Sumner conjecture asserts that if H is a tree then every graph with bounded clique number and very large chromatic number contains H as an induced subgraph. This is still open, although it has been proved for a few simple families of trees, including trees of radius two, some special trees of radius three, and subdivided stars. These trees all have the property that their vertices of degree more than two are clustered quite closely together. In this paper, we prove the conjecture for two families of trees which do not have this restriction. As special cases, these families contain …
A convex polygon is defined as a sequence (V_0,...,V_{n-1}) of points on a plane such that the union of the edges [V_0,V_1],..., [V_{n-2},V_{n-1}], [V_{n-1},V_0] coincides with the boundary of the convex hull of the set of vertices {V_0,...,V_{n-1}}. It is proved that all sub-polygons of any convex polygon with distinct vertices are convex. It is also proved that, if all sub-(n-1)-gons of an n-gon with n\ge5 are convex, then the n-gon is convex. Other related results are given.
A tree $T$ on $2^n$ vertices is called set-sequential if the elements in $V(T)\cup E(T)$ can be labeled with distinct nonzero $(n+1)$-dimensional $01$-vectors such that the vector labeling each edge is the component-wise sum modulo $2$ of the labels of the endpoints. It has been conjectured that all trees on $2^n$ vertices with only odd degree are set-sequential (the "Odd Tree Conjecture"), and in this paper, we present progress toward that conjecture. We show that certain kinds of caterpillars (with restrictions on the degrees of the vertices, but no restrictions on the diameter) are set-sequ…
For a fixed graph $F$, we would like to determine the maximum number of edges in a properly edge-colored graph on $n$ vertices which does not contain a rainbow copy of $F$, that is, a copy of $F$ all of whose edges receive a different color. This maximum, denoted by $ex^*(n, F)$, is the rainbow Turán number of $F$. We show that $ex^*(n,P_k)\geq \frac{k}{2}n + O(1)$ where $P_k$ is a path on $k\geq 3$ edges, generalizing a result by Maamoun and Meyniel and by Johnston, Palmer and Sarkar. We show similar bounds for brooms on $2^s-1$ edges and diameter $\leq 10$ and a few other caterpillars of sma…
