Let $P_{n}$ be a path graph on $n$ vertices. We say that a graph $G$ is $P_{n}$-induced-saturated if $G$ contains no induced copy of $P_{n}$, but deleting any edge of $G$ as well as adding to $G$ any edge of $G^{c}$ creates such a copy. Martin and Smith (2012) showed that there is no $P_{4}$-induced-saturated graph. On the other hand, there trivially exist $P_{n}$-induced-saturated graphs for $n=2,3$. Axenovich and Csikós (2019) ask for which integers $n \geq 5$ do there exist $P_{n}$-induced-saturated graphs. Räty (2019) constructed such a graph for $n=6$, and Cho, Choi and Park (2019) later constructed such graphs for all $n=3k$ for $k \geq 2$. We show by a different construction that $P_{n}$-induced-saturated graphs exist for all $n \geq 6$, leaving only the case $n=5$ open.
The saturation number of a graph $F$, written $\textup{sat}(n,F)$, is the minimum number of edges in an $n$-vertex $F$-saturated graph. One of the earliest results on saturation numbers is due to Erdős, Hajnal, and Moon who determined $\textup{sat}(n,K_r)$ for all $r \geq 3$. Since then, saturation numbers of various graphs and hypergraphs have been studied. Motivated by Alon and Shikhelman's generalized Turán function, Kritschgau et.\ al.\ defined $\textup{sat}(n,H,F)$ to be the minimum number of copies of $H$ in an $n$-vertex $F$-saturated graph. They proved, among other things, that $\textu…
A graph $G$ is $F$-saturated if it contains no copy of $F$ as a subgraph but the addition of any new edge to $G$ creates a copy of $F$. We prove that for $s \geq 3$ and $t \geq 2$, the minimum number of copies of $K_{1,t}$ in a $K_s$-saturated graph is $Θ( n^{t/2})$. More precise results are obtained when $t = 2$ where the problem is related to Moore graphs with diameter 2 and girth 5. We prove that for $s \geq 4$ and $t \geq 3$, the minimum number of copies of $K_{2,t}$ in an $n$-vertex $K_s$-saturated graph is at least $Ω( n^{t/5 + 8/5})$ and at most $O(n^{t/2 + 3/2})$. These results answer …
For $n \geq 15$, we prove that the minimum number of triangles in an $n$-vertex $K_4$-saturated graph with minimum degree 4 is exactly $2n-4$, and that there is a unique extremal graph. This is a triangle version of a result of Alon, Erdős, Holzman, and Krivelevich from 1996. Additionally, we show that for any $s > r \geq 3$ and $t \geq 2 (s-2)+1$, there is a $K_s$-saturated $n$-vertex graph with minimum degree $t$ that has $\binom{ s-2}{r-1}2^{r-1} n + c_{s,r,t}$ copies of $K_r$. This shows that unlike the number of edges, the number of $K_r$'s ($r >2$) in a $K_s$-saturated graph is not force…
Gerbner, Patkós, Tuza, and Vizer recently initiated the study of $F$-saturated regular graphs. One of the essential problems in this line of research is determining when such a graph exists. Using generalized sum-free sets we prove that for any odd integer $k \geq 5$, there is an $n$-vertex regular $C_k$-saturated graph for all $n \geq n_k$. Our proof is based on constructing a special type of sum-free set in $\mathbb{Z}_n$. We prove that for all even $\ell \geq 4$ and integers $n > 12 \ell^2 + 36 \ell + 24$, there is a symmetric complete $( \ell , 1)$-sum-free set in $\mathbb{Z}_n$. We pose t…
A graph $G$ is called $H$-saturated if it does not contain any copy of $H$, but for any edge $e$ in the complement of $G$ the graph $G+e$ contains some $H$. The minimum size of an $n$-vertex $H$-saturated graph is denoted by $\sat(n,H)$. We prove $$\sat(n,C_k) = n + n/k + O((n/k^2) + k^2)$$ holds for all $n\geq k\geq 3$, where $C_k$ is a cycle with length $k$. We have a similar result for semi-saturated graphs $$\ssat(n,C_k) = n + n/(2k) + O((n/k^2) + k).$$ We conjecture that our three constructions are optimal.
Write $ρ\left( G\right) $ for the spectral radius of a graph $G$ and $S_{n,r}$ for the join $K_{r}\vee\overline{K}_{n-r}.$ Let $n>r\geq2$ and $G$ be a $K_{r+1}$-saturated graph of order $n.$ Recently Kim, Kim, Kostochka, and O determined exactly the minimum value of $ρ\left( G\right) $ for $r=2$, and found an asymptotically tight bound on $ρ\left( G\right) $ for $r\geq3.$ They also conjectured that \[ ρ\left( G\right) >ρ\left( S_{n,r-1}\right) , \] unless $G=S_{n,r-1}.$ In this note their conjecture is proved.
For a fixed graph $F$, a graph $G$ is said to be $F$-saturated if $G$ does not contain a subgraph isomorphic to $F$ but does contain $F$ after the addition of any new edge. Let $M_k$ be a matching consisting of $k$ edges and $S_{n,k}$ be the join graph of a complete graph $K_k$ and an empty graph $\overline{K_{n-k}}$. In this paper, we prove that for $s \geq3$ and $k\geq 2$, $S_{n,s-2}$ contains the minimum number of $M_k$ among all $n$-vertex $K_s$-saturated graphs for sufficiently large $n$, and when $k \leq s-2$, it is the unique extremal graph. In addition, we also show that $S_{n,1}$ is t…
In a recent paper, Gerbner, Patkós, Tuza and Vizer studied regular $F$-saturated graphs. One of the essential questions is given $F$, for which $n$ does a regular $n$-vertex $F$-saturated graph exist. They proved that for all sufficiently large $n$, there is a regular $K_3$-saturated graph with $n$ vertices. We extend this result to both $K_4$ and $K_5$ and prove some partial results for larger complete graphs. Using a variation of sum-free sets from additive combinatorics, we prove that for all $k \geq 2$, there is a regular $C_{2k+1}$-saturated with $n$ vertices for infinitely many $n$. Stud…
Given a graph $H$, we say that a graph $G$ is $H$-saturated if $G$ contains no copy of $H$ but adding any new edge to $G$ creates a copy of $H$. Let $sat(n,K_r,t)$ be the minimum number of edges in a $K_r$-saturated graph on $n$ vertices with minimum degree at least $t$. Day showed that for fixed $r \geq 3$ and $t \geq r-2$, $sat(n,K_r,t)=tn-c(r,t)$ for large enough $n$, where $c(r,t)$ is a constant depending on $r$ and $t$, and proved the bounds $$ 2^t t^{3/2} \ll_r c(r,t) \leq t^{t^{2t^2}} $$ for fixed $r$ and large $t$. In this paper we show that for fixed $r$ and large $t$, the order of ma…
An $\mathcal{F}$-saturated $r$-graph is a maximal $r$-graph not containing any member of $\mathcal{F}$ as a subgraph. Let $\mathcal{K}_{\ell + 1}^{r}$ be the collection of all $r$-graphs $F$ with at most $\binom{\ell+1}{2}$ edges such that for some $\left(\ell+1\right)$-set $S$ every pair $\{u, v\} \subset S$ is covered by an edge in $F$. Our first result shows that for each $\ell \geq r \geq 2$ every $\mathcal{K}_{\ell+1}^{r}$-saturated $r$-graph on $n$ vertices with $t_{r}(n, \ell) - o(n^{r-1+1/\ell})$ edges contains a complete $\ell$-partite subgraph on $(1-o(1))n$ vertices, which extends a…
A graph $G$ is called $H$-induced-saturated if $G$ does not contain an induced copy of $H$, but removing any edge from $G$ creates an induced copy of $H$ and adding any edge of $G^{c}$ to $G$ creates an induced copy of $H$. Martin and Smith showed that there does not exist a $P_{4}$-induced-saturated graph, where $P_{4}$ is the path on 4 vertices. Axenovich and Csikós studied related questions, and asked if there exists a $P_{n}$-induced-saturated graph for any $n\geq5$. Our aim in this short note is to show that there exists a $P_{6}$-induced-saturated graph.
Given a set $X$, a collection $\mathcal{F}\subseteq\mathcal{P}(X)$ is said to be $k$-Sperner if it does not contain a chain of length $k+1$ under set inclusion and it is saturated if it is maximal with respect to this property. Gerbner et al. conjectured that, if $|X|$ is sufficiently large with respect to $k$, then the minimum size of a saturated $k$-Sperner system $\mathcal{F}\subseteq\mathcal{P}(X)$ is $2^{k-1}$. We disprove this conjecture by showing that there exists $\varepsilon>0$ such that for every $k$ and $|X| \geq n_0(k)$ there exists a saturated $k$-Sperner system $\mathcal{F}\subs…
Let $Q_d$ denote the hypercube of dimension $d$. Given $d\geq m$, a spanning subgraph $G$ of $Q_d$ is said to be $(Q_d,Q_m)$-saturated if it does not contain $Q_m$ as a subgraph but adding any edge of $E(Q_d)\setminus E(G)$ creates a copy of $Q_m$ in $G$. Answering a question of Johnson and Pinto, we show that for every fixed $m\geq2$ the minimum number of edges in a $(Q_d,Q_m)$-saturated graph is $Θ(2^d)$. We also study weak saturation, which is a form of bootstrap percolation. A spanning subgraph of $Q_d$ is said to be weakly $(Q_d,Q_m)$-saturated if the edges of $E(Q_d)\setminus E(G)$ can b…
Given a finite poset $\mathcal{P}$, a family $\mathcal{F}$ of elements in the Boolean lattice is induced-$\mathcal{P}$-saturated if $\mathcal{F}$ contains no copy of $\mathcal{P}$ as an induced subposet but every proper superset of $\mathcal{F}$ contains a copy of $\mathcal{P}$ as an induced subposet. The minimum size of an induced-$\mathcal{P}$-saturated family in the $n$-dimensional Boolean lattice, denoted $\operatorname{sat}^*(n,\mathcal{P})$, was first studied by Ferrara et al. (2017). Our work focuses on strengthening lower bounds. For the 4-point poset known as the diamond, we prove $\o…
We say $G$ is \emph{$(Q_n,Q_m)$-saturated} if it is a maximal $Q_m$-free subgraph of the $n$-dimensional hypercube $Q_n$. A graph, $G$, is said to be $(Q_n,Q_m)$-semi-saturated if it is a subgraph of $Q_n$ and adding any edge forms a new copy of $Q_m$. The minimum number of edges a $(Q_n,Q_m)$-saturated graph (resp. $(Q_n,Q_m)$-semi-saturated graph) can have is denoted by $sat(Q_n,Q_m)$ (resp. $s\text{-}sat(Q_n,Q_m)$). We prove that $ \lim_{n\to\infty}\frac{sat(Q_n,Q_m)}{e(Q_n)}=0$, for fixed $m$, disproving a conjecture of Santolupo that, when $m=2$, this limit is $\frac{1}{4}$. Further, we s…
A graph $G$ is $H$-saturated if it contains no $H$ as a subgraph, but does contain $H$ after the addition of any edge in the complement of $G$. The saturation number, $sat (n, H)$, is the minimum number of edges of a graph in the set of all $H$-saturated graphs with order $n$. In this paper, we determine the saturation number $sat (n, P_6 + tP_2)$ for $n \geq 10t/3 + 10$ and characterize the extremal graphs for $n >10t/3 + 20$.
For a class $\mathcal{D}$ of drawings of loopless (multi-)graphs in the plane, a drawing $D \in \mathcal{D}$ is \emph{saturated} when the addition of any edge to $D$ results in $D' \notin \mathcal{D}$ - this is analogous to saturated graphs in a graph class as introduced by Turán (1941) and Erdős, Hajnal, and Moon (1964). We focus on $k$-planar drawings, that is, graphs drawn in the plane where each edge is crossed at most $k$ times, and the classes $\mathcal{D}$ of all $k$-planar drawings obeying a number of restrictions, such as having no crossing incident edges, no pair of edges crossing mo…
For a graph $H$, a graph $G$ is $H$-induced-saturated if $G$ does not contain an induced copy of $H$, but either removing an edge from $G$ or adding a non-edge to $G$ creates an induced copy of $H$. Depending on the graph $H$, an $H$-induced-saturated graph does not necessarily exist. In fact, Martin and Smith (2012) showed that $P_4$-induced-saturated graphs do not exist, where $P_k$ denotes a path on $k$ vertices. Axenovich and Csikós (2019) asked the existence of $P_k$-induced-saturated graphs for $k \ge 5$; it is easy to construct such graphs when $k\in\{2, 3\}$. Recently, Räty constructed…
A graph $G$ is called $F$-saturated if $G$ does not contain $F$ as a subgraph (not necessarily induced) but the addition of any missing edge to $G$ creates a copy of $F$. The saturation number of $F$, denoted by $sat(n,F)$, is the minimum number of edges in an $n$-vertex $F$-saturated graph. Determining the saturation number of complete partite graphs is one of the most important problems in the study of saturation number. The value of $sat(n,K_{2,2})$ was shown to be $\lfloor\frac{3n-5}{2}\rfloor$ by Ollmann, and a shorter proof was later given by Tuza. For $K_{2,3}$, there has been a series …
A degree monotone path in a graph $G$ is a path $P$ such that the sequence of degrees of the vertices in the order in which they appear on $P$ is monotonic. The length of the longest degree monotone path in $G$ is denoted by $mp(G)$. This parameter, inspired by the well-known Erdos-Szekeres theorem, has been studied by the authors in two earlier papers. Here we consider a saturation problem for the parameter $mp(G)$. We call $G$ saturated if, for every edge $e$ added to $G$, $mp(G+e) >mp(G)$, and we define $h(n,k)$ to be the least possible number of edges in a saturated graph $G$ on $n$ vertic…
A detour of a graph G is a longest path in G. The detour order of G is the number of vertices in a detour of G. A graph is said to be detour-saturated if the addition of any edge increases strictly the detour order. L.W. Beineke, J.E. Dunbar and M. Frick asked the following three questions in 2005. (1) What is the smallest order of a detour-saturated graph of girth 4? (2) Let Pr be the graph obtained from the Petersen graph by splitting one of its vertices into three leaves. Is Pr the smallest triangle-free detour-saturated graph? (3) Does there exist a detour-saturated graph with finite girth…
This paper considers two important questions in the well-studied theory of graphs that are $F$-saturated. A graph $G$ is called $F$-saturated if $G$ does not contain a subgraph isomorphic to $F$, but the addition of any edge creates a copy of $F$. We first resolve a fundamental question of minimizing the number of cliques of size $r$ in a $K_s$-saturated graph for all sufficiently large numbers of vertices, confirming a conjecture of Kritschgau, Methuku, Tait, and Timmons. We also go further and prove a corresponding stability result. Next we minimize the number of cycles of length $r$ in a $K…
A graph $G$ is $H$-saturated for a graph $H$, if $G$ does not contain a copy of $H$ but adding any new edge to $G$ results in such a copy. An $H$-saturated graph on a given number of vertices always exists and the properties of such graphs, for example their highest density, have been studied intensively. A graph $G$ is $H$-induced-saturated if $G$ does not have an induced subgraph isomorphic to $H$, but adding an edge to $G$ from its complement or deleting an edge from $G$ results in an induced copy of $H$. It is not immediate anymore that $H$-induced-saturated graphs exist. In fact, Martin a…
Given graphs $G$ and $H$, $G$ is $H$-saturated if $G$ does not contain a copy of $H$ but the addition of any edge $e\notin E(G)$ creates at least one copy of $H$ within $G$. The edge spectrum of $H$ is the set of all possible sizes of an $H$-saturated graph on $n$ vertices. Let $K_4^-$ be a graph obtained from $K_4$ by deleting an edge. In this note, we show that (a) if $G$ is a $K_4^-$-saturated graph with $|V(G)|=n$ and $|E(G)|>\lfloor \frac{n-1}{2} \rfloor \lceil \frac{n-1}{2} \rceil +2$, then $G$ must be a bipartite graph; (b) there exists a $K_4^-$-saturated non-bipartite graph on $n\ge 1…
A graph is $F$-saturated if it is $F$-free but the addition of any edge creates a copy of $F$. In this paper we study the quantity $\mathrm{sat}(n, H, F)$ which denotes the minimum number of copies of $H$ that an $F$-saturated graph on $n$ vertices may contain. This parameter is a natural saturation analogue of Alon and Shikhelman's generalized Turán problem, and letting $H = K_2$ recovers the well-studied saturation function. We provide a first investigation into this general function focusing on the cases where the host graph is either $K_s$ or $C_k$-saturated. Some representative interestin…
In this paper we generalize the concept of uniquely $K_r$-saturated graphs to hypergraphs. Let $K_r^{(k)}$ denote the complete $k$-uniform hypergraph on $r$ vertices. For integers $k,r,n$ such that $2\le k <r<n$, a $k$-uniform hypergraph $H$ with $n$ vertices is uniquely $K_r^{(k)}$-saturated if $H$ does not contain $K_r^{(k)}$ but adding to $H$ any $k$-set that is not a hyperedge of $H$ results in exactly one copy of $K_r^{(k)}$. Among uniquely $K_r^{(k)}$-saturated hypergraphs, the interesting ones are the primitive ones that do not have a dominating vertex---a vertex belonging to all possib…
For a graph $F$, we say that another graph $G$ is $F$-saturated, if $G$ is $F$-free and adding any edge to $G$ would create a copy of $F$. We study for a given graph $F$ and integer $n$ whether there exists a regular $n$-vertex $F$-saturated graph, and if it does, what is the smallest number of edges of such a graph. We mainly focus on the case when $F$ is a complete graph and prove for example that there exists a $K_3$-saturated regular graph on $n$ vertices for every large enough $n$. We also study two relaxed versions of the problem: when we only require that no regular $F$-free supergraph …
On saturation problems involving clique number and matching number
Center for Discrete Mathematics, Fuzhou University(福州大学离散数学中心);School of Mathematics and Statistics, Fuzhou University(福州大学数学与统计学院);School of Mathematics and Statistics, Nanjing University of Science and Technology(南京理工大学数学与统计学院)
An induced matching $M$ in a graph $G$ is a matching in $G$ that is also the edge set of an induced subgraph of $G$. That is, any edge not in $M$ must have no more than one incident vertex saturated by $M$. The maximum size $|M|$ of an induced matching $M$ of $G$ is maximum induced matching number of $G$, which is denoted by $\textrm{Max}(G)$. In this article, we obtain upper bounds for $\textrm{Max}(G)$, for $G=G_{n,m}$, grids with $n,m \geq 9$, $m\equiv 1 \mod 4$ and $nm$ odd.
Let $\mathcal{C}$ be a family of edge-colored graphs. A $t$-edge colored graph $G$ is $(\mathcal{C}, t)$-saturated if $G$ does not contain any graph in $\mathcal{C}$ but the addition of any edge in any color in $[t]$ creates a copy of some graph in $\mathcal{C}$. Similarly to classical saturation functions, define $\mathrm{sat}_t(n, \mathcal{C})$ to be the minimum number of edges in a $(\mathcal{C},t)$ saturated graph. Let $\mathcal{C}_r(H)$ be the family consisting of every edge-colored copy of $H$ which uses exactly $r$ colors. In this paper we consider a variety of colored saturation proble…
Given graphs $G$ and $H$, $G$ is $H$-saturated if $H$ is not a subgraph of $G$, but for all $e \notin E(G)$, $H$ appears as a subgraph of $G + e$. While for every $n \ge |V(H)|$, there exists an $n$-vertex graph that is $H$-saturated, the same does not hold for induced subgraphs. That is, there exist graphs $H$ and values of $n \ge |V(H)|$ for which every $n$-vertex graph $G$ either contains $H$ as an induced subgraph, or there exists $e \notin E(G)$ such that $G + e$ does not contain $H$ as an induced subgraph. To circumvent this, Martin and Smith make use of trigraphs when introducing the co…
Let $\mathcal{F}$ be a family of $r$-graphs. An $r$-graph $G$ is called $\mathcal{F}$-saturated if it does not contain any members of $\mathcal{F}$ but adding any edge creates a copy of some $r$-graph in $\mathcal{F}$. The saturation number $\operatorname{sat}(\mathcal{F},n)$ is the minimum number of edges in an $\mathcal{F}$-saturated graph on $n$ vertices. We prove that there exists a finite family $\mathcal{F}$ such that $\operatorname{sat}(\mathcal{F},n) / n^{r-1}$ does not tend to a limit. This settles a question of Pikhurko.