Let $G$ be a simple graph with maximum degree $Δ$. We call $G$ \emph{overfull} if $|E(G)|>Δ\lfloor |V(G)|/2\rfloor$. The \emph{core} of $G$, denoted $G_Δ$, is the subgraph of $G$ induced by its vertices of degree $Δ$. A classic result of Vizing shows that $χ'(G)$, the chromatic index of $G$, is either $Δ$ or $Δ+1$. It is NP-complete to determine the chromatic index for a general graph. However, if $G$ is overfull then $χ'(G)=Δ+1$. Hilton and Zhao in 1996 conjectured that if $G$ is a simple connected graph with $Δ\ge 3$ and $Δ(G_Δ)\le 2$, then $χ'(G)=Δ+1$ if and only if $G$ is overfull or $G=P^*$, where $P^*$ is obtained from the Petersen graph by deleting a vertex. This conjecture, if true, implies an easy approach for calculating $χ'(G)$ for graphs $G$ satisfying the conditions. The progress on the conjecture has been slow: it was only confirmed for $Δ=3,4$, respectively, in 2003 and 2017. In this paper, we confirm this conjecture for all $Δ\ge 4$.
A simple graph $G$ is \emph{overfull} if $|E(G)|>Δ\lfloor|V(G)|/2\rfloor$. By the pigeonhole principle, every overfull graph $G$ has $χ'(G)>Δ$. The \emph{core} of a graph, denoted $G_Δ$, is the subgraph induced by its vertices of degree $Δ$. Vizing's Adjacency Lemma implies that if $χ'(G)>Δ$, then $G_Δ$ contains cycles. Hilton and Zhao conjectured that if $G_Δ$ has maximum degree 2 and $Δ\ge 4$, then $χ'(G)>Δ$ precisely when $G$ is overfull. We prove this conjecture for the case $Δ=4$.
A simple graph $G$ with maximum degree $Δ$ is overfull if $|E(G)|>Δ\lfloor |V(G)|/2\rfloor$. The core of $G$, denoted $G_Δ$, is the subgraph of $G$ induced by its vertices of degree $Δ$. Clearly, the chromatic index of $G$ equals $Δ+1$ if $G$ is overfull. Conversely, Hilton and Zhao in 1996 conjectured that if $G$ is a simple connected graph with $Δ\ge 3$ and $Δ(G_Δ)\le 2$, then $χ'(G)=Δ+1$ implies that $G$ is overfull or $G=P^*$, where $P^*$ is obtained from the Petersen graph by deleting a vertex. Cariolaro and Cariolaro settled the base case $Δ=3$ in 2003, and Cranston and Rabern proved the…
Let A_1,...,A_k be a collection of families of subsets of an n-element set. We say that this collection is cross-intersecting if for any i,j in [k] with i not equal to j, A in A_i and B in A_j implies that the intersection of A and B is nonempty. We consider a theorem of Hilton which gives a best possible upper bound on the sum of the cardinalities of uniform cross-intersecting subfamilies. We formulate a graph-theoretic analogue of Hilton's cross-intersection theorem, similar to the one developed by Holroyd, Spencer and Talbot for the Erdos-Ko-Rado theorem. In particular we build on a result …
Let $G$ be a simple graph, and let $n$, $Δ(G)$ and $χ' (G)$ be the order, the maximum degree and the chromatic index of $G$, respectively. We call $G$ overfull if $|E(G)|/\lfloor n/2\rfloor > Δ(G)$, and critical if $χ'(H) < χ'(G)$ for every proper subgraph $H$ of $G$. Clearly, if $G$ is overfull then $χ'(G) = Δ(G)+1$. The core of $G$, denoted by $G_Δ$, is the subgraph of $G$ induced by all its maximum degree vertices. Hilton and Zhao conjectured that for any critical class 2 graph $G$ with $Δ(G) \ge 4$, if the maximum degree of $G_Δ$ is at most two, then $G$ is overfull, which in turn gives $Δ…
Let $G$ be a simple graph with maximum degree $Δ(G)$. A subgraph $H$ of $G$ is overfull if $|E(H)|>Δ(G)\lfloor |V(H)|/2 \rfloor$. Chetwynd and Hilton in 1985 conjectured that a graph $G$ on $n$ vertices with $Δ(G)>n/3$ has chromatic index $Δ(G)$ if and only if $G$ contains no overfull subgraph. Glock, Kühn and Osthus in 2016 showed that the conjecture is true for dense quasirandom graphs with even order, and they conjectured that the same should hold for such graphs with odd order. In this paper, we show that the conjecture of Glock, Kühn and Osthus is affirmative.
Let $G$ be a simple graph with maximum degree $Δ$. A classic result of Vizing shows that $χ'(G)$, the chromatic index of $G$, is either $Δ$ or $Δ+1$. We say $G$ is of \emph{Class 1} if $χ'(G)=Δ$, and is of \emph{Class 2} otherwise. A graph $G$ is \emph{$Δ$-critical} if $χ'(G)=Δ+1$ and $χ'(H)<Δ+1$ for every proper subgraph $H$ of $G$, and is \emph{overfull} if $|E(G)|>Δ\lfloor (|V(G)|-1)/2 \rfloor$. Clearly, overfull graphs are Class 2. Hilton and Zhao in 1997 conjectured that if $G$ is obtained from an $n$-vertex $Δ$-regular Class 1 graph with maximum degree greater than $n/3$ by splitting a v…
Let $G$ be a simple graph with maximum degree $Δ(G)$. A subgraph $H$ of $G$ is overfull if $|E(H)|>Δ(G)\lfloor \frac{1}{2}|V(H)| \rfloor$. Chetwynd and Hilton in 1986 conjectured that a graph $G$ with $Δ(G)>\frac{1}{3}|V(G)|$ has chromatic index $Δ(G)$ if and only if $G$ contains no overfull subgraph. Let $0<\varepsilon <1$ and $G$ be a large graph on $n$ vertices with minimum degree at least $\frac{1}{2}(1+\varepsilon)n$. It was shown that the conjecture holds for $G$ if $n$ is even. In this paper, the same result is proved if $n$ is odd. As far as we know, this is the first result on the con…
We prove a new upper bound for the minimum $d$-degree threshold for perfect matchings in $k$-uniform hypergraphs when $d<k/2$. As a consequence, this determines exact values of the threshold when $0.42k \le d < k/2$ or when $(k,d)=(12,5)$ or $(17,7)$. Our approach is to give an upper bound on the Erdős Matching Conjecture and convert the result to the minimum $d$-degree setting by an approach of Kühn, Osthus and Townsend. To obtain exact thresholds, we also apply a result of Treglown and Zhao.
Let $G$ be a simple graph with maximum degree $Δ(G)$. A subgraph $H$ of $G$ is overfull if $|E(H)|>Δ(G)\lfloor |V(H)|/2 \rfloor$. Chetwynd and Hilton in 1985 conjectured that a graph $G$ with $Δ(G)>|V(G)|/3$ has chromatic index $Δ(G)$ if and only if $G$ contains no overfull subgraph. The 1-factorization conjecture is a special case of this overfull conjecture, which states that for even $n$, every regular $n$-vertex graph with degree at least about $n/2$ has a 1-factorization and was confirmed for large graphs in 2014. Supporting the overfull conjecture as well as generalizing the 1-factorizat…
Extremal problems involving the enumeration of graph substructures have a long history in graph theory. For example, the number of independent sets in a $d$-regular graph on $n$ vertices is at most $(2^{d+1}-1)^{n/2d}$ by the Kahn-Zhao theorem. Relaxing the regularity constraint to a minimum degree condition, Galvin conjectured that, for $n\geq 2d$, the number of independent sets in a graph with $δ(G)\geq d$ is at most that in $K_{d,n-d}$. In this paper, we give a lower bound on the number of independent sets in a $d$-regular graph mirroring the upper bound in the Kahn-Zhao theorem. The main r…
For a simple graph $G$, denote by $n$, $Δ(G)$, and $χ'(G)$ its order, maximum degree, and chromatic index, respectively. A connected class 2 graph $G$ is edge-chromatic critical if $χ'(G-e)<Δ(G)+1$ for every edge $e$ of $G$. Define $G$ to be overfull if $|E(G)|>Δ(G) \lfloor n/2 \rfloor$. Clearly, overfull graphs are class 2 and any graph obtained from a regular graph of even order by splitting a vertex is overfull. Let $G$ be an $n$-vertex connected regular class 1 graph with $Δ(G) >n/3$. Hilton and Zhao in 1997 conjectured that if $G^*$ is obtained from $G$ by splitting one vertex of $G$ into…
A family of permutations A \subset S_n is said to be intersecting if any two permutations in A agree at some point, i.e. for any σ, π\in A, there is some i such that σ(i)=π(i). Deza and Frankl showed that for such a family, |A| <= (n-1)!. Cameron and Ku showed that if equality holds then A = {σ\in S_{n}: σ(i)=j} for some i and j. They conjectured a `stability' version of this result, namely that there exists a constant c < 1 such that if A \subset S_{n} is an intersecting family of size at least c(n-1)!, then there exist i and j such that every permutation in A maps i to j (we call such a fami…
Albertson conjectured that if graph $G$ has chromatic number $r$, then the crossing number of $G$ is at least that of the complete graph $K_r$. This conjecture in the case $r=5$ is equivalent to the four color theorem. It was verified for $r=6$ by Oporowski and Zhao. In this paper, we prove the conjecture for $7 \leq r \leq 12$ using results of Dirac; Gallai; and Kostochka and Stiebitz that give lower bounds on the number of edges in critical graphs, together with lower bounds by Pach et.al. on the crossing number of graphs in terms of the number of edges and vertices.
For a $k$-uniform hypergraph $H$, let $δ_1(H)$ denote the minimum vertex degree of $H$, and $ν(H)$ denote the size of the largest matching in $H$. In this paper, we show that for any $k\geq 3$ and $β>0$, there exists an integer $n_0(β,k)$ such that for positive integers $n\geq n_0$ and $m\leq (\frac{k}{2(k-1)}-β)\frac{n}{k}$, if $H$ is an $n$-vertex $k$-graph with $δ_1(H)>{{n-1}\choose {k-1}}-{{n-m}\choose {k-1}},$ then $ν(H)\geq m$. This improves upon earlier results of Bollobás, Daykin and Erdős (1976) for the range $n> 2k^3(m+1)$ and Huang and Zhao (2017) for the range $n\geq 3k^2 m$.
In this paper we prove the following results (via a unified approach) for all sufficiently large $n$: (i) [$1$-factorization conjecture] Suppose that $n$ is even and $D\geq 2\lceil n/4\rceil -1$. Then every $D$-regular graph $G$ on $n$ vertices has a decomposition into perfect matchings. Equivalently, $χ'(G)=D$. (ii) [Hamilton decomposition conjecture] Suppose that $D \ge \lfloor n/2 \rfloor $. Then every $D$-regular graph $G$ on $n$ vertices has a decomposition into Hamilton cycles and at most one perfect matching. (iii) [Optimal packings of Hamilton cycles] Suppose that $G$ is a graph on $n$…
The Kneser graph ${\rm KG}_{n,k}$ is a graph whose vertex set is the family of all $k$-subsets of $[n]$ and two vertices are adjacent if their corresponding subsets are disjoint. The classical Erdős-Ko-Rado theorem determines the cardinality and structure of a maximum induced $K_2$-free subgraph in ${\rm KG}_{n,k}$. As a generalization of the Erdős-Ko-Rado theorem, Erdős proposed a conjecture about the maximum order of an induced $K_{s+1}$-free subgraph of ${\rm KG}_{n,k}$. As the best known result concerning this conjecture, Frankl [Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series A, 2013], when $n\ge…
Let $G$ be a connected simple graph of order $n$ 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 $Δ(G)+1$. Following this result, $G$ is called $Δ$-critical if $χ'(G)=Δ(G)+1$ and $χ'(G-e)=Δ(G)$ for every $e\in E(G)$. In 1968, Vizing conjectured that if $G$ is an $n$-vertex $Δ$-critical graph, then the independence number $α(G)\le n/2$. Furthermore, he conjectured that, in fact, $G$ has a 2-factor. Luo and Zhao showed that if $G$ is an $n$-vertex $Δ$-critical graph with $Δ(G)\ge n/2$, then $α(G)\le n/2$. More rece…
There is a remarkable connection between the maximum clique number and the Lagrangian of a graph given by T. S. Motzkin and E.G. Straus in 1965. This connection and its extensions were successfully employed in optimization to provide heuristics for the maximum clique number in graphs. It is useful in practice if similar results hold for hypergraphs. In this paper, we explore evidences that the Lagrangian of a 3-uniform hypergraph is related to the order of its maximum cliques when the number of edges of the hypergraph is in certain range. In particular, we present some results about a conjectu…
In this paper, by developing several new adjacency lemmas about a path on $4$ or $5$ vertices, we show that the average degree of 7-critical graphs is at least 6. It implies Vizing's planar graph conjecture for planar graphs with maximum degree $7$ and its extension to graphs embeddable in a surface with nonnegative Euler characteristic due to Sanders and Zhao (J. Combin. Theory Ser. B 83 (2001) 201-212 and J. Combin. Theory Ser. B 87 (2003) 254-263) and Zhang (Graphs and Combinatorics 16 (2000) 467-495).
Given a simple graph $G$, denote by $Δ(G)$, $δ(G)$, and $χ'(G)$ the maximum degree, the minimum degree, and the chromatic index of $G$, respectively. We say $G$ is \emph{$Δ$-critical} if $χ'(G)=Δ(G)+1$ and $χ'(H)\le Δ(G)$ for every proper subgraph $H$ of $G$; and $G$ is \emph{overfull} if $|E(G)|>Δ\lfloor |V(G)|/2 \rfloor$. Since a maximum matching in $G$ can have size at most $\lfloor |V(G)|/2 \rfloor$, it follows that $χ'(G) = Δ(G) +1$ if $G$ is overfull. Conversely, let $G$ be a $Δ$-critical graph. The well known overfull conjecture of Chetwynd and Hilton asserts that $G$ is overfull provid…
Complete tripartite subgraphs of balanced tripartite graphs with large minimum degree
University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学）；East China Normal University（华东师范大学）；University of Birmingham（伯明翰大学）；Xiangtan University（湘潭大学）；Georgia State University（佐治亚州立大学）
The conjecture of Bollobás and Komlós, recently proved by Böttcher, Schacht, and Taraz [Math. Ann. 343(1), 175--205, 2009], implies that for any $γ>0$, every balanced bipartite graph on $2n$ vertices with bounded degree and sublinear bandwidth appears as a subgraph of any $2n$-vertex graph $G$ with minimum degree $(1+γ)n$, provided that $n$ is sufficiently large. We show that this threshold can be cut in half to an essentially best-possible minimum degree of $(\frac12+γ)n$ when we have the additional structural information of the host graph $G$ being balanced bipartite. This complements result…
For graphs $G$ and $H$, a {\em homomorphism} from $G$ to $H$, or {\em $H$-coloring} of $G$, is an adjacency preserving map from the vertex set of $G$ to the vertex set of $H$. Writing ${\rm hom}(G,H)$ for the number of $H$-colorings admitted by $G$, we conjecture that for any simple finite graph $H$ (perhaps with loops) and any simple finite $n$-vertex, $d$-regular, loopless graph $G$ we have $$ {\rm hom}(G,H) \leq \max{{\rm hom}(K_{d,d},H)^{\frac{n}{2d}}, {\rm hom}(K_{d+1},H)^{\frac{n}{d+1}}} $$ where $K_{d,d}$ is the complete bipartite graph with $d$ vertices in each partition class, and $K_…
