A well-known question of Gallai (1966) asked whether there is a vertex which passes through all longest paths of a connected graph. Although this has been verified for some special classes of graphs such as outerplanar graphs, circular arc graphs, and series-parallel graphs, the answer is negative for general graphs. In this paper, we prove among other results that if we replace the vertex by a bond, then the answer is affirmative. A bond of a graph is a minimal nonempty edge-cut. In particular, in any 2-connected graph, the set of all edges incident to a vertex is a bond, called a vertex-bond. Clearly, for a 2-connected graph, a path passes through a vertex $v$ if and only if it meets the vertex-bond with respect to $v$. Therefore, a very natural approach to Gallai's question is to study whether there is a bond meeting all longest paths. Let $p$ denote the length of a longest path of connected graphs. We show that for any 2-connected graph, there is a bond meeting all paths of length at least $p-1$. We then prove that for any 3-connected graph, there is a bond meeting all paths of length at least $p-2$. For a $k$-connected graph $(k\ge3)$, we show that there is a bond meeting all paths of length at least $p-t+1$, where $t=\Big\lfloor\sqrt{\frac{k-2}{2}}\Big\rfloor$ if $p$ is even and $t=\Big\lceil\sqrt{\frac{k-2}{2}}\Big\rceil$ if $p$ is odd. Our results provide analogs of the corresponding results of P. Wu and S. McGuinness [Bonds intersecting cycles in a graph, Combinatorica 25 (4) (2005), 439-450] also.
For a graph property $\mathcal{P}$ and a common vertex set $V = \{1, 2, \ldots, n\}$, a family of graphs on $V$ is \emph{$\mathcal{P}$-intersecting} iff $G \cap H$ satisfies $\mathcal{P}$ for all $G,H$ in the family. Addressing a question of Chung, Graham, Frankl, and Shearer, we explore---for various $\mathcal{P}$---the maximum cardinality among all $\mathcal{P}$-intersecting families of graphs. In the connected-intersecting case, we resolve the question completely by a short linear algebraic proof showing this maximum is attained by taking all graphs containing a fixed spanning tree (though …
In 1966, T. Gallai asked whether every connected graph has a vertex that appears in all longest paths. Since then this question has attracted much attention and many work has been done in this topic. One important open question in this area is to ask whether any three longest paths contains a common vertex in a connected graph. It was conjectured that the answer to this question is positive. In this paper, we propose a new approach in view of distances among longest paths in a connected graph, and give a substantial progress towards the conjecture along the idea.
Let $G$ be a bridgeless cubic graph, and $μ_2(G)$ the minimum number $k$ such that two 1-factors of $G$ intersect in $k$ edges. A cyclically $n$-edge-connected cubic graph $G$ has a nowhere-zero 5-flow if (1) $n \geq 6$ and $μ_2(G) \leq 2$ or (2) if $n \geq 5 μ_2(G)-3$
We prove that if a family of compact connected sets in the plane has the property that every three members of it are intersected by a line, then there are three lines intersecting all the sets in the family. This answers a question of Eckhoff from 1993, who proved that, under the same condition, there are four lines intersecting all the sets. In fact, we prove a colorful version of this result, under weakened conditions on the sets. A triple of sets $A,B,C$ in the plane is said to be a {\em tight} if $\textrm{conv}(A\cup B)\cap \textrm{conv}(A\cup C)\cap \textrm{conv}(B\cap C)\neq \emptyset.$ …
We consider the size of the smallest set of vertices required to intersect every longest path in a chordal graph. Such sets are known as longest path transversals. We show that if $ω(G)$ is the clique number of a chordal graph $G$, then there is a transversal of order at most $4\lceil\frac{ω(G)}{5}\rceil$. We also consider the analogous question for longest cycles, and show that if $G$ is a 2-connected chordal graph then there is a transversal intersecting all longest cycles of order at most $2\lceil\frac{ω(G)}{3}\rceil$.
In this note we investigate the behavior of the volume that the convex hull of two congruent and intersecting simplices in Euclidean $n$-space can have. We prove some useful equalities and inequalities on this volume. For the regular simplex we determine the maximal possible volume for the case when the two simplices are related to each other via reflection at a hyperplane intersecting them.
Let $G(X,Y)$ be a connected, non-complete bipartite graph with $|X|\leq |Y|$. An independent set $A$ of $G(X,Y)$ is said to be trivial if $A\subseteq X$ or $A\subseteq Y$. Otherwise, $A$ is nontrivial. By $α(X,Y)$ we denote the size of maximal-sized nontrivial independent sets of $G(X,Y)$. We prove that if the automorphism group of $G(X,Y)$ is transitive on $X$ and $Y$, then $α(X,Y)=|Y|-d(X)+1$, where $d(X)$ is the common degree of vertices in $X$. We also give the structures of maximal-sized nontrivial independent sets of $G(X,Y)$. As applications of this result, we give the upper bound of si…
A cycle cover of a graph is a collection of cycles such that each edge of the graph is contained in at least one of the cycles. The length of a cycle cover is the sum of all cycle lengths in the cover. We prove that every bridgeless cubic graph with $m$ edges has a cycle cover of length at most $212/135 \cdot m \ (\approx 1.570 m)$. Moreover, if the graph is cyclically $4$-edge-connected we obtain a cover of length at most $47/30 \cdot m \approx 1.567 m$.
Let $G$ be a graph with $X\subseteq V(G)$ and let $l$ be an intersecting supermodular subadditive integer-valued function on subsets of $V(G)$. The graph $G$ is said to be $l$-partition-connected, if for every partition $P$ of $V(G)$, $e_G(P)\ge \sum_{A\in P} l(A)-l(V(G))$, where $e_G(P)$ denotes the number of edges of $G$ joining different parts of $P$. Let $λ\in [0,1]$ be a real number and let $η$ be a real function on $X$. In this paper, we show that if $G$ is $l$-partition-connected and for all $S\subseteq X$, $$Θ_l(G \setminus S) \le \sum_{v\in S} (η(v) -2l(v))+l(V(G))+l(S)-λ(e_G(S))+l(S)…
We show that the class of multigraphs with at most $p$ connected components and bonds of size at most $k$ is well-quasi-ordered by edge contraction for all positive integers $p,k$. (A bond is a minimal non-empty edge cut.) We also characterize canonical antichains for this relation and show that they are fundamental.
Let $G=(V,E)$ be a graph. A subset $S \subseteq V$ is a dominating set of $G$ if every vertex not in $S$ is adjacent to a vertex in $S$. A set $\tilde{D} \subseteq V$ of a graph $G=(V,E) $ is called an outer-connected dominating set for $G$ if (1) $\tilde{D}$ is a dominating set for $G$, and (2) $G [V \setminus \tilde{D}]$, the induced subgraph of $G$ by $V \setminus \tilde{D}$, is connected. The minimum size among all outer-connected dominating sets of $G$ is called the outer-connected domination number of $G$ and is denoted by $\tildeγ_c(G)$. We define the outer-connected bondage number of a…
Given a graph $G=(V,E)$, the maximum bond problem searches for a maximum cut $δ(S) \subseteq E$ with $S \subseteq V$ such that $G[S]$ and $G[V\setminus S]$ are connected. This problem is closely related to the well-known maximum cut problem and known under a variety of names such as largest bond, maximum minimal cut and maximum connected (sides) cut. The bond polytope is the convex hull of all incidence vectors of bonds. Similar to the connection of the corresponding optimization problems, the bond polytope is closely related to the cut polytope. While cut polytopes have been intensively studi…
A graph $G$ contains another graph $H$ as an immersion if $H$ can be obtained from a subgraph of $G$ by splitting off edges and removing isolated vertices. In this paper, we prove an edge-variant of the Erdős-Pósa property with respect to the immersion containment in 4-edge-connected graphs. More precisely, we prove that for every graph $H$, there exists a function $f$ such that for every 4-edge-connected graph $G$, either $G$ contains $k$ pairwise edge-disjoint subgraphs each containing $H$ as an immersion, or there exists a set of at most $f(k)$ edges of $G$ intersecting all such subgraphs. …
In this paper we give tight upper bounds on the total domination number, the weakly connected domination number and the connected domination number of a graph in terms of order and Euler characteristic. We also present upper bounds for the restrained bondage number, the total restrained bondage number and the restricted edge connectivity of graphs in terms of the orientable/nonorientable genus and maximum degree.
Let $G=(V,E)$ be a finite simple graph. The Graovac-Ghorbani index of a graph G is defined as $ABC_{GG}(G)=\sum_{uv\in E(G)}\sqrt{\frac{n_u(uv,G)+n_v(uv,G)-2}{n_u(uv,G)n_v(uv,G)}},$ where $n_u(uv,G)$ is the number of vertices closer to vertex $u$ than vertex $v$ of the edge $uv\in E(G)$. $n_v(uv,G)$ is defined analogously. The atom-bond connectivity index of a graph G is defined as $ABC(G)=\sum_{uv\in E(G)}\sqrt{\frac{d_u+d_v-2}{d_ud_v}},$ where $d_u$ is the degree of vertex $u$ in $G$. Let $G$ be a connected graph constructed from pairwise disjoint connected graphs $G_1,\ldots ,G_k$ by select…
The atom-bond connectivity (ABC) index is a degree-based topological index. It was introduced due to its applications in modeling the properties of certain molecular structures and has been since extensively studied. In this note, we examine the influence on the extremal values of the ABC index by various graph parameters. More specifically, we consider the maximum ABC index of connected graphs of given order, with fixed independence number, number of pendent vertices, chromatic number and edge-connectivity respectively. We provide characterizations of extremal structures as well as some conje…
The circumference of a graph is the length of its longest cycles. Jackson established a conjecture of Bondy by showing that the circumference of a 3-connected cubic graph of order $n$ is $Ω(n^{0.694})$. Bilinski {\it et al.} improved this lower bound to $Ω(n^{0.753})$ by studying large Eulerian subgraphs in 3-edge-connected graphs. In this paper, we further improve this lower bound to $Ω(n^{0.8})$. This is done by considering certain 2-connected cubic graphs, finding cycles through two given edges, and distinguishing the cases whether or not these edges are adjacent.
The partition lattice and noncrossing partition lattice are well studied objects in combinatorics. Given a graph $G$ on vertex set $\{1,2,\dots, n\}$, its bond lattice, $L_G$, is the subposet of the partition lattice formed by restricting to the partitions whose blocks induce connected subgraphs of $G$. In this article, we introduce a natural noncrossing analogue of the bond lattice, the noncrossing bond poset, $NC_G$, obtained by restricting to the noncrossing partitions of $L_G$. Both the noncrossing partition lattice and the bond lattice have many nice combinatorial properties. We show that…
We study site and bond percolation on directed simple random graphs with a given degree distribution and derive the expressions for the critical value of the percolation probability above which the giant strongly connected component emerges and the fraction of vertices in this component.
We show that every bridgeless cubic graph $G$ with $m$ edges has a cycle cover of length at most $1.6 m$. Moreover, if $G$ does not contain any intersecting circuits of length $5$, then $G$ has a cycle cover of length $212/135 \cdot m \approx 1.570 m$ and if $G$ contains no $5$-circuits, then it has a cycle cover of length at most $14/9 \cdot m \approx 1.556 m$. To prove our results, we show that each $2$-edge-connected cubic graph $G$ on $n$ vertices has a $2$-factor containing at most $n/10+f(G)$ circuits of length $5$, where the value of $f(G)$ only depends on the presence of several subgra…
The {\em atom-bond connectivity (ABC) index} is a degree-based molecular descriptor, that found chemical applications. It is well known that among all connected graphs, the graphs with minimal ABC index are trees. A complete characterization of trees with minimal $ABC$ index is still an open problem. In this paper, we present new structural properties of trees with minimal ABC index. Our main results reveal that trees with minimal ABC index do not contain so-called {\em $B_k$-branches}, with $k \geq 5$, and that they do not have more than four $B_4$-branches.
The mathematical analysis of robustness and error-tolerance of complex networks has been in the center of research interest. On the other hand, little work has been done when the attack-tolerance of the vertices or edges are not independent but certain classes of vertices or edges share a mutual vulnerability. In this study, we consider a graph and we assign colors to the vertices or edges, where the color-classes correspond to the shared vulnerabilities. An important problem is to find robustly connected vertex sets: nodes that remain connected to each other by paths providing any type of err…
The bunkbed of a graph $G$ is the graph $G\times K_2 $. It has been conjectured that in the independent bond percolation model, the probability for $\left(u,0\right)$ to be connected with $\left(v,0\right)$ is greater than the probability for $\left(u,0\right)$ to be connected with $\left(v,1\right)$, for any vertex $u$, $v$ of $G$. In this article, we prove this conjecture for the complete graph in the case of the independent bond percolation of parameter $p=1/2$.
For an integer $n\geq 2$, the triangular graph has vertex set the $2$-subsets of $\{1,\ldots,n\}$ and edge set the pairs of $2$-subsets intersecting at one point. Such graphs are known to be halved graphs of bipartite rectagraphs, which are connected triangle-free graphs in which every $2$-path lies in a unique quadrangle. We refine this result and provide a characterisation of connected locally triangular graphs as halved graphs of normal quotients of $n$-cubes. To do so, we study a parameter that generalises the concept of minimum distance for a binary linear code to arbitrary automorphism g…
We prove that every simply connected orthogonal polygon of $n$ vertices can be partitioned into $\left\lfloor\frac{3 n +4}{16}\right\rfloor$ (simply connected) orthogonal polygons of at most 8 vertices. It yields a new and shorter proof of the theorem of A. Aggarwal that $\left\lfloor\frac{3 n +4}{16}\right\rfloor$ mobile guards are sufficient to control the interior of an $n$-vertex orthogonal polygon. Moreover, we strengthen this result by requiring combinatorial guards (visibility is only required at the endpoints of patrols) and prohibiting intersecting patrols. This yields positive answer…
Let P be a set of n > 2 points in general position in the plane and let G be a geometric graph with vertex set P. If the number of empty triangles uvw in P for which the subgraph of G induced by {u,v,w} is not connected is at most n-3, then G contains a non-self intersecting spanning tree.
