For a given number of colors, $s$, the guessing number of a graph is the (base $s$) logarithm of the cardinality of the largest family of colorings of the vertex set of the graph such that the color of each vertex can be determined from the colors of the vertices in its neighborhood. This quantity is related to problems in network coding, circuit complexity and graph entropy. We study the guessing number of graphs as a graph property in the context of classic extremal questions, and its relationship to the forbidden subgraph property. We find the extremal number with respect to the property of having guessing number $\leq a$, for fixed $a$. Furthermore, we find an upper bound on the saturation number for this property, and a method to construct further saturated graphs that lie between these two extremes. We show that, for a fixed number of colors, bounding the guessing number is equivalent to forbidding a finite set of subgraphs.
The hat-guessing number is a graph invariant defined by Butler, Hajiaghayi, Kleinberg, and Leighton. We determine the hat-guessing number exactly for book graphs with sufficiently many pages, improving previously known lower bounds of He and Li and exactly matching an upper bound of Gadouleau. We prove that the hat-guessing number of $K_{3,3}$ is $3$, making this the first complete bipartite graph $K_{n,n}$ for which the hat-guessing number is known to be smaller than the upper bound of $n+1$ of Gadouleau and Georgiou. Finally, we determine the hat-guessing number of windmill graphs for most c…
We analyze the version of the deterministic Hats game. In this paper, we present new constructors, i.e. theorems that allow built winning strategies for the sages on different graphs. Using this technique we calculate the hat guessing number ${\text{HG}}_s(G)$ for paths and "petunias", and present a planar graph $G$ for which ${\text{HG}}_1(G) \ge 22$.
Assume $n$ players are placed on the $n$ vertices of a graph $G$. The following game was introduced by Winkler: An adversary puts a hat on each player, where each hat has a colour out of $q$ available colours. The players can see the hat of each of their neighbours in $G$, but not their own hat. Using a prediscussed guessing strategy, the players then simultaneously guess the colour of their hat. The players win if at least one of them guesses correctly, else the adversary wins. The largest integer $q$ such that there is a winning strategy for the players is denoted by $\text{HG}(G)$, and this…
Recently, Farnik asked whether the hat guessing number $\text{HG}(G)$ of a graph $G$ could be bounded as a function of its degeneracy $d$, and Bosek, Dudek, Farnik, Grytczuk and Mazur showed that $\text{HG}(G)\ge 2^d$ is possible. We show that for all $d\ge 1$ there exists a $d$-degenerate graph $G$ for which $\text{HG}(G) \ge 2^{2^{d-1}}$. We also give a new general method for obtaining upper bounds on $\text{HG}(G)$. The question of whether $\text{HG}(G)$ is bounded as a function of $d$ remains open.
We study a cooperative game in which each member of a team of $N$ players, wearing coloured hats and situated at the vertices of a cycle graph $C_N$, is guessing their own hat colour merely on the basis of observing the hats worn by their two neighbours without exchanging the information. Each hat can have one of three colours. A predetermined guessing strategy is winning if it guarantees at least one correct individual guess for every assignment of colours. We prove that a winning strategy exists if and only if $N$ is divisible by $3$ or $N=4$. This problem represents an example of a relation…
Vrije Universiteit Brussel（布鲁塞尔自由大学）；William & Mary（威廉玛丽学院）；Delft University of Technology（代尔夫特理工大学）；Université libre de Bruxelles（布鲁塞尔自由大学）；University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign（伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校）；Leiden University（莱顿大学）；IIT Kanpur（坎普尔印度理工学院）；Indian Statistical Institute（印度统计研究所）；Open University（开放大学）；Klaipėda University（克莱佩达大学）
Let $G$ be a graph with $n$ vertices. The {\em hat guessing number} of $G$ is defined in terms of the following game: There are $n$ players and one opponent. The opponent will wear one of the $q$ hats of different colors on the player's head. At this time, the player can only see the player's hat color at the adjacent vertex, and communication between players is not allowed. Once players are assigned hats, each player must guess the color of his hat at the same time. If at least one player guesses right, then they will win collectively. Given a graph $G$, its hat guessing number $HG(G)$ is the…
The hat guessing number $HG(G)$ of a graph $G$ on $n$ vertices is defined in terms of the following game: $n$ players are placed on the $n$ vertices of $G$, each wearing a hat whose color is arbitrarily chosen from a set of $q$ possible colors. Each player can see the hat colors of his neighbors, but not his own hat color. All of the players are asked to guess their own hat colors simultaneously, according to a predetermined guessing strategy and the hat colors they see, where no communication between them is allowed. The hat guessing number $HG(G)$ is the largest integer $q$ such that there e…
The guessing game introduced by Riis is a variant of the "guessing your own hats" game and can be played on any simple directed graph G on n vertices. For each digraph G, it is proved that there exists a unique guessing number gn(G) associated to the guessing game played on G. When we consider the directed edge to be bidirected, in other words, the graph G is undirected, Christofides and Markstrom introduced a method to bound the value of the guessing number from below using the fractional clique number Kf(G). In particular they showed gn(G) >= |V(G)| - Kf(G). Moreover, it is pointed out that…
Consider the following hat guessing game: $n$ players are placed on $n$ vertices of a graph, each wearing a hat whose color is arbitrarily chosen from a set of $q$ possible colors. Each player can see the hat colors of his neighbors, but not his own hat color. All of the players are asked to guess their own hat colors simultaneously, according to a predetermined guessing strategy and the hat colors they see, where no communication between them is allowed. Given a graph $G$, its hat guessing number ${\rm{HG}}(G)$ is the largest integer $q$ such that there exists a guessing strategy guaranteeing…
The guessing number of a directed graph (digraph), equivalent to the entropy of that digraph, was introduced as a direct criterion on the solvability of a network coding instance. This paper makes two contributions on the guessing number. First, we introduce an undirected graph on all possible configurations of the digraph, referred to as the guessing graph, which encapsulates the essence of dependence amongst configurations. We prove that the guessing number of a digraph is equal to the logarithm of the independence number of its guessing graph. Therefore, network coding solvability is no mor…
For a given number of colours, $s$, the guessing number of a graph is the base $s$ logarithm of the size of the largest family of colourings of the vertex set of the graph such that the colour of each vertex can be determined from the colours of the vertices in its neighbourhood. An upper bound for the guessing number of the $n$-vertex cycle graph $C_n$ is $n/2$. It is known that the guessing number equals $n/2$ whenever $n$ is even or $s$ is a perfect square \cite{Christofides2011guessing}. We show that, for any given integer $s\geq 2$, if $a$ is the largest factor of $s$ less than or equal t…
We introduce the (private) entropy of a directed graph (in a new network coding sense) as well as a number of related concepts. We show that the entropy of a directed graph is identical to its guessing number and can be bounded from below with the number of vertices minus the size of the graph's shortest index code. We show that the Network Coding solvability of each specific multiple unicast network is completely determined by the entropy (as well as by the shortest index code) of the directed graph that occur by identifying each source node with each corresponding target node. Shannon's info…
An extremal graph for a graph $H$ on $n$ vertices is a graph on $n$ vertices with maximum number of edges that does not contain $H$ as a subgraph. Let $T_{n,r}$ be the Turán graph, which is the complete $r$-partite graph on $n$ vertices with part sizes that differ by at most one. The well-known Turán Theorem states that $T_{n,r}$ is the only extremal graph for complete graph $K_{r+1}$. Erdös et al. (1995) determined the extremal graphs for intersecting triangles and Chen et al. (2003) determined the maximum number of edges of the extremal graphs for intersecting cliques. In this paper, we dete…
We provide new constructions of Meyniel extremal graphs, which are families of graphs with the conjectured largest asymptotic cop number. Using spanning subgraphs, we prove that there are an exponential number of new Meyniel extremal families with specified degrees. Using a linear programming problem on hypergraphs, we explore the degrees in families that are not Meyniel extremal. We give the best-known upper bound on the cop number of vertex-transitive graphs with a prescribed degree. We find new Meyniel extremal families of regular graphs with large chromatic number, large diameter, and expl…
The spectral radius and rank of a graph are defined to be the spectral radius and rank of its adjacency matrix, respectively. It is an important problem in spectral extremal graph theory to determine the extremal graph that has the maximum or minimum spectral radius over certain families of graphs. Monsalve and Rada [Extremal spectral radius of graphs with rank 4, Linear Algebra Appl. 609 (2021) 1-11] obtained the extremal graphs with maximum and minimum spectral radii among all graphs with order n and rank 4. In this paper, we first determine the extremal graph which attains the maximum spect…
The family of Directed Acyclic Graphs as well as some related graphs are analyzed with respect to extremal behavior in relation with the family of intersection graphs for families of boxes with transverse intersection.
In this paper we deal with a Turán-type problem: given a positive integer n and a forbidden graph H, how many edges can there be in a graph on n vertices without a subgraph H? How does a graph look like if it has this extremal edge number? The forbidden graph in this article is a clique-path: a path of length k where each edge is extended to an r-clique, r >2. We determine both the extremal number and the extremal graphs for sufficiently large n.
We survey various aspects of infinite extremal graph theory and prove several new results. The lead role play the parameters connectivity and degree. This includes the end degree. Many open problems are suggested.
The \emph{blow-up} of a graph $H$ is the graph obtained from replacing each edge in $H$ by a clique of the same size where the new vertices of the cliques are all different. Erdős et al. and Chen et al. determined the extremal number of blow-ups of stars. Glebov determined the extremal number and found all extremal graphs for blow-ups of paths. We determined the extremal number and found the extremal graphs for the blow-ups of cycles and a large class of trees, when $n$ is sufficiently large. This generalizes their results. The additional aim of our note is to draw attention to a powerful tool…
This note answers extremal questions like: what is the maximum number of edges in a graph of order n, which belongs to some hereditary property. The same question is answered also for the spectral radius and other similar parameters.
A general expression for calculating the bond incident degree (BID) indices of certain triangular chain graphs is derived. The extremal triangular chain graphs with respect to several well known BID indices are also characterized over a particular collection of triangular chain graphs.
The Turán type extremal problem asks to maximize the number of edges over all graphs which do not contain fixed subgraphs. Similarly, the spectral Turán type extremal problem asks to maximize spectral radius of all graphs which do not contain fixed subgraphs. In this paper, we determine the maximum spectral radius of all graphs without containing a linear forest as a subgraph and characterize all corresponding extremal graphs. In addition, the maximum number of edges and spectral radius of all bipartite graphs without containing $k\cdot P_3$ as a subgraph are obtained and all extremal graphs a…
We determine the maximum number of edges in a $K_4$-minor-free $n$-vertex graph of girth $g$, when $g = 5$ or $g$ is even. We argue that there are many different $n$-vertex extremal graphs, if $n$ is even and $g$ is odd.
We give inequalities relating the eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix and the Laplacian of a graph, and its minimum and maximum degrees. The results are applied to derive new conditions for quasi-randomness of graphs.
Many extremal problems for graphs have threshold graphs as their extremal examples. For instance the current authors proved that for fixed $k\ge 1$, among all graphs on $n$ vertices with $m$ edges, some threshold graph has the fewest matchings of size $k$; indeed either the lex graph or the colex graph is such an extremal example. In this paper we consider the problem of maximizing the number of matchings in the class of threshold graphs. We prove that the minimizers are what we call \emph{almost alternating threshold graphs}. We also discuss a problem with a similar flavor: which threshold gr…
Brualdi and Hoffman (1985) proposed the problem of determining the maximal spectral radius of graphs with given size. In this paper, we consider the Brualdi-Hoffman type problem of graphs with given matching number. The maximal $Q$-spectral radius of graphs with given size and matching number is obtained, and the corresponding extremal graphs are also determined.
An extremal graph for a given graph $H$ is a graph with maximum number of edges on fixed number of vertices without containing a copy of $H$. The $k$-th power of a path is a graph obtained from a path and joining all pair of vertices of the path with distance less than $k$. Applying a deep theorem of Simonovits, we characterize the extremal graphs of the $k$-th power of paths. This settles a conjecture posed by Xiao, Katona, Xiao and Zamora in a stronger form.
We systematically study a natural problem in extremal graph theory, to minimize the number of edges in a graph with a fixed number of vertices, subject to a certain local condition: each vertex must be in a copy of a fixed graph $H$. We completely solve this problem when $H$ is a clique, as well as more generally when $H$ is any regular graph with degree at least about half its number of vertices. We also characterize the extremal graphs when $H$ is an Erdős-Rényi random graph. The extremal structures turn out to have the similar form as the conjectured extremal structures for a well-studied b…
We survey recent advances in the theory of graph and hypergraph decompositions, with a focus on extremal results involving minimum degree conditions. We also collect a number of intriguing open problems, and formulate new ones.
We investigate extremal graphs related to the game of Cops and Robbers. We focus on graphs where a single cop can catch the robber; such graphs are called cop-win. The capture time of a cop-win graph is the minimum number of moves the cop needs to capture the robber. We consider graphs that are extremal with respect to capture time, i.e. their capture time is as large as possible given their order. We give a new characterization of the set of extremal graphs. For our alternative approach we assign a rank to each vertex of a graph, and then study which configurations of ranks are possible. We p…
This paper is devoted to present two counterexamples to the theorem from \cite{MK} Maria R., Katherine T. M., Bernardo S. M., Extremal graphs with bounded vertex bipartiteness number, Linear Algebra Appl. 493 (2016) 28-36. Moreover, the corrected theorem and proof are presented.
Given two graphs $H$ and $F$, the generalized Turán number $\mathrm{ex}(n,H,F)$ is the largest number of copies of $H$ in an $n$-vertex $F$-free graph. For every $F$ and sufficiently large $n$, we present an extremal graph for a generalized Turán problem, i.e., an $F$-free $n$ vertex graph $G$ that for some $H$ contains exactly $\mathrm{ex}(n,H,F)$ copies of $H$.
Given a family of graphs $\mathcal{H}$, the extremal number $\textrm{ex}(n, \mathcal{H})$ is the largest $m$ for which there exists a graph with $n$ vertices and $m$ edges containing no graph from the family $\mathcal{H}$ as a subgraph. We show that for every rational number $r$ between $1$ and $2$, there is a family of graphs $\mathcal{H}_r$ such that $\textrm{ex}(n, \mathcal{H}_r) = Θ(n^r)$. This solves a longstanding problem in the area of extremal graph theory.
In this expository paper, we present a motivated construction of large graphs not containing a given complete bipartite subgraph. The key insight is that the algebraic constructions yield very non-smooth probability distributions.
The transmission ${\rm Tr}_G(v)$ of a vertex $v$ of a connected graph $G$ is the sum of distances between $v$ and all other vertices in $G$. $G$ is a stepwise transmission irregular (STI) graph if $|{\rm Tr}_G(u) - {\rm Tr}_G(v)| =1$ holds for each edge $uv \in E(G)$. In this paper, extremal results on STI graphs with respect to the size and different metric properties are proved. Two extremal families appear in all the cases, balanced complete bipartite graphs of odd order and the so called odd hatted cycles.
The first degree-based entropy of a graph is the Shannon entropy of its degree sequence normalized by the degree sum. Its correct interpretation as a measure of uniformity of the degree sequence requires the determination of its extremal values given natural constraints. In this paper, we prove that the graphs with given size that minimize the first degree-based entropy are the colex graphs.
This paper surveys some recent results and progress on the extremal prob- lems in a given set consisting of all simple connected graphs with the same graphic degree sequence. In particular, we study and characterize the extremal graphs having the maximum (or minimum) values of graph invariants such as (Laplacian, p-Laplacian, signless Laplacian) spectral radius, the first Dirichlet eigenvalue, the Wiener index, the Harary index, the number of subtrees and the chromatic number etc, in given sets with the same tree, unicyclic, graphic degree sequences. Moreover, some conjectures are included.
The sum of the absolute values of the eigenvalues of a graph is called the energy of the graph. We study the problem of finding graphs with extremal energy within specified classes of graphs. We develop tools for treating such problems and obtain some partial results. Using calculus, we show that an extremal graph ``should'' have a small number of distinct eigenvalues. However, we also present data that shows in many cases that extremal graphs can have a large number of distinct eigenvalues.
This paper is a survey on Extremal Graph Theory, primarily focusing on the case when one of the excluded graphs is bipartite. On one hand we give an introduction to this field and also describe many important results, methods, problems, and constructions.
The Laplacian spread of a graph is the difference between the largest eigenvalue and the second-smallest eigenvalue of the Laplacian matrix of the graph. We find that the class of strongly regular graphs attains the maximum of largest eigenvalues, the minimum of second-smallest eigenvalues of Laplacian matrices and hence the maximum of Laplacian spreads among all simple connected graphs of fixed order, minimum degree, maximum degree, minimum size of common neighbors of two adjacent vertices and minimum size of common neighbors of two nonadjacent vertices. Some other extremal graphs are also pr…
We prove an upper bound for the number of edges a C4-free graph on q^2 + q vertices can contain for q even. This upper bound is achieved whenever there is an orthogonal polarity graph of a plane of even order q.
Extremal problems involving independent sets are much studied. Two of the most important extremal problems in this context are concerned with the sharp upper bounds for the number of independent sets of fixed size and the independence number. In literature, these sharp upper bounds are derived in completely different contexts. In this paper, we show that both of these sharp upper bounds can be derived by considering Lex graphs. More exactly, they depend on two parameters of a sequence defined on them.
In the 1960s, Erdős and his cooperators initiated the research of the maximum numbers of edges in a graph or a planar graph on $n$ vertices without $k$ edge-disjoint cycles. This problem had been solved for $k\leq4$. As pointed out by Bollobás, it is very difficult for general $k$. Recently, Tait and Tobin [J. Combin. Theory Ser. B, 2017] confirmed a famous conjecture on maximum spectral radius of $n$-vertex planar graphs. Motivated by the above results, we consider two extremal problems on planar graphs without $k$ edge-disjoint cycles. We first determine the maximum number of edges in a plan…
In a connected graph G, the distance between two vertices of G is the length of a shortest path between these vertices. The eccentricity of a vertex u in G is the largest distance between u and any other vertex of G. The total-eccentricity index τ(G) is the sum of eccentricities of all vertices of G. In this paper, we find extremal trees, unicyclic and bicyclic graphs with respect to total-eccentricity index. Moreover, we find extremal conjugated trees with respect to total-eccentricity index.
Turán-Type Extremal Results for Distance-$k$ Graphs
Beijing Jiaotong University（北京交通大学）；Jagiellonian University（雅盖隆大学）；HUN-REN Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics（匈牙利研究与教育国家研究所阿尔弗雷德·雷尼数学研究所）；Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics（南京航空航天大学）
