How many cliques can a graph on $n$ vertices have with a forbidden substructure? Extremal problems of this sort have been studied for a long time. This paper studies the maximum possible number of cliques in a graph on $n$ vertices with a forbidden clique subdivision or immersion. We prove for $t$ sufficiently large that every graph on $n \geq t$ vertices with no $K_t$-immersion has at most $2^{t+\log^2 t}n$ cliques, which is sharp apart from the $2^{O(\log^2 t)}$ factor. We also prove that the maximum number of cliques in an $n$-vertex graph with no $K_t$-subdivision is at most $2^{1.817t}n$.…
We prove that for all positive integers $t$, every $n$-vertex graph with no $K_t$-subdivision has at most $2^{50t}n$ cliques. We also prove that asymptotically, such graphs contain at most $2^{(5+o(1))t}n$ cliques, where $o(1)$ tends to zero as $t$ tends to infinity. This strongly answers a question of D. Wood asking if the number of cliques in $n$-vertex graphs with no $K_t$-minor is at most $2^{ct}n$ for some constant $c$.
In the graph sharing game, two players share a connected graph $G$ with non-negative weights assigned to the vertices, claiming and collecting the vertices of $G$ one by one, while keeping the set of all claimed vertices connected through the whole game. Each player wants to maximize the total weight of the vertices they have gathered by the end of the game, when the whole $G$ has been claimed. It is proved that for any class $\mathcal{G}$ of graphs with an odd number of vertices and with forbidden subdivision of a fixed graph (e.g., for the class $\mathcal{G}$ of planar graphs with an odd num…
Consider the poset of partitions of {1,...(n-1)k+1} with block sizes congruent to 1 modulo k. We prove that its order complex is a subdivision of the complex of k-trees, thereby answering a question posed by Feichtner. The result is obtained by an ad-hoc generalization of concepts from the theory of nested set complexes to non-lattices.
Forbidden minors and subdivisions for toroidal graphs are numerous. We consider the toroidal graphs with no $K_{3,3}$-subdivisions that coincide with the toroidal graphs with no $K_{3,3}$-minors. These graphs admit a unique decomposition into planar components and have short lists of obstructions. We provide the complete lists of four forbidden minors and eleven forbidden subdivisions for the toroidal graphs with no $K_{3,3}$'s and prove that the lists are sufficient.
The $s$-colour size-Ramsey number of a hypergraph $H$ is the minimum number of edges in a hypergraph $G$ whose every $s$-edge-colouring contains a monochromatic copy of $H$. We show that the $s$-colour size-Ramsey number of the $t$-power of the $r$-uniform tight path on $n$ vertices is linear in $n$, for every fixed $r, s, t$, thus answering a question of Dudek, La Fleur, Mubayi, and Rödl (2017). In fact, we prove a stronger result that allows us to deduce that powers of bounded degree hypergraph trees and powers of `long subdivisions' of bounded degree hypergraphs have size-Ramsey numbers tha…
A subset $D$ of $V$ is \emph{dominating} in $G$ if every vertex of $V-D$ has at least one neighbour in $D;$ let $γ(G)$ be the minimum cardinality among all dominating sets in $G.$ A graph $G$ is $γ$-$q$-{\it critical} if the smallest subset of edges whose subdivision necessarily increases $γ(G)$ has cardinality $q.$ In this paper we consider mainly $γ$-$q$-critical trees and give some general properties of $gamma$-$q$-critical graphs. In particular, we show that if $T$ is a $γ$-$q$-critical tree, then $1 \leq q \leq n(T)-1$ and we characterize extremal trees when $q=n(T)-1.$ Since a subdivisio…
Reduction trees are a way of encoding a substitution procedure dictated by the relations of an algebra. We use reduction trees in the subdivision algebra to construct canonical triangulations of flow polytopes which are shellable. We explain how a shelling of the canonical triangulation can be read off from the corresponding reduction tree in the subdivision algebra. We then introduce the notion of shellable reduction trees in the subdivision and related algebras and define h-polynomials of reduction trees. In the case of the subdivision algebra, the h-polynomials of the canonical triangulatio…
Geodesic distance, sometimes called shortest path length, has proven useful in a great variety of applications, such as information retrieval on networks including treelike networked models. Here, our goal is to analytically determine the exact solutions to geodesic distances on two different families of growth trees which are recursively created upon an arbitrary tree $\mathcal{T}$ using two types of well-known operations, first-order subdivision and ($1,m$)-star-fractal operation. Different from commonly-used methods, for instance, spectral techniques, for addressing such a problem on growth…
An anagram is a word of the form $WP$ where $W$ is a non-empty word and $P$ is a permutation of $W$. A vertex colouring of a graph is anagram-free if no subpath of the graph is an anagram. Anagram-free graph colouring was independently introduced by Kamčev, Łuczak and Sudakov and ourselves. In this paper we introduce the study of anagram-free colourings of graph subdivisions. We show that every graph has an anagram-free $8$-colourable subdivision. The number of division vertices per edge is exponential in the number of edges. For trees, we construct anagram-free $10$-colourable subdivisions wi…
The problem of how to estimate diffusion on a graph effectively is of importance both theoretically and practically. In this paper, we make use of two widely studied indices, geodesic distance and mean first-passage time ($MFPT$) for random walk, to consider such a problem on some treelike models of interest. To this end, we first introduce several types of operations, for instance, $m$th-order subdivision and ($1,m$)-star-fractal operation, to generate the potential candidate models. And then, we develop a class of novel techniques based on mapping for calculating the exact formulas of the bo…
A graph $H$ is an induced subgraph of a graph $G$ if a graph isomorphic to $H$ can be obtained from $G$ by deleting vertices. Recently, there has been significant interest in understanding the unavoidable induced subgraphs for graphs of large treewidth. Motivated by this work, we consider the analogous problem for pathwidth: what are the unavoidable induced subgraphs for graphs of large pathwidth? While resolving this question in the general setting looks challenging, we prove various results for sparse graphs. In particular, we show that every graph with bounded maximum degree and sufficientl…
The \emph{domination subdivision number} sd$(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the minimum number of edges that must be subdivided (where an edge can be subdivided at most once) in order to increase the domination number of $G$. It has been shown \cite{vel} that sd$(T)\leq 3$ for any tree $T$. We prove that the decision problem of the domination subdivision number is NP-complete even for bipartite graphs. For this reason we define the \emph{domination multisubdivision number} of a nonempty graph $G$ as a minimum positive integer $k$ such that there exists an edge which must be subdivided $k$ times to incr…
In 2007, Eickmeyer et al. showed that the tree topologies outputted by the Neighbor-Joining (NJ) algorithm and the balanced minimum evolution (BME) method for phylogenetic reconstruction are each determined by a polyhedral subdivision of the space of dissimilarity maps ${\R}^{n \choose 2}$, where $n$ is the number of taxa. In this paper, we will analyze the behavior of the Neighbor-Joining algorithm on five and six taxa and study the geometry and combinatorics of the polyhedral subdivision of the space of dissimilarity maps for six taxa as well as hyperplane representations of each polyhedral …
For graphs $H$ and $F$, let $\operatorname{ex}(n, H, F)$ be the maximum possible number of copies of $H$ in an $F$-free graph on $n$ vertices. The study of this function, which generalises the well-studied Turán numbers of graphs, was initiated recently by Alon and Shikhelman. We show that if $F$ is a tree then $\operatorname{ex}(n, H, F) = Θ(n^r)$ for some integer $r = r(H, F)$, thus answering one of their questions.
We present two short proofs for Diestel's criterion that a connected graph has a normal spanning tree provided it contains no subdivision of a countable clique in which every edge has been replaced by uncountably many parallel edges.
We propose a natural, bivariate, generalization of the nonsingular similarity relations considered by T. Fine. We also provide an enumeration formulae and a generating tree for those relations. The latter allow us to give a new bijection between 321-avoiding derangements and Fine sequences. Moreover, we establish that two special cases are in a one-to-one correspondence with subsets of permutations characterized by forbidden subsequences on the symmetrical group. All our results are established using the technique of generating tree, thus giving entirely bijective proofs.
In 1985, Mader conjectured the existence of a function $f$ such that every digraph with minimum out-degree at least $f(k)$ contains a subdivision of the transitive tournament of order $k$. This conjecture is still completely open, as the existence of $f(5)$ remains unknown. In this paper, we show that if $D$ is an oriented path, or an in-arborescence (i.e., a tree with all edges oriented towards the root) or the union of two directed paths from $x$ to $y$ and a directed path from $y$ to $x$, then every digraph with minimum out-degree large enough contains a subdivision of $D$. Additionally, we…
Let $e$ be an edge of a connected simple graph $G$. The graph obtained by removing (subdividing) an edge $e$ from $G$ is denoted by $G-e$ ($G_e$). As usual, $γ(G)$ denotes the domination number of $G$. We call $G$ an SR-graph if $γ(G-e) = γ(G_e)$ for any edge $e$ of $G$, and $G$ is an ASR-graph if $γ(G - e) \neq (G_e)$ for any edge $e$ of $G$. In this work we give several examples of SR and ASR-graphs. Also, we characterize SR-trees and show that ASR-graphs are $γ$-insensitive.
The dual graph $Γ(h)$ of a regular triangulation $Σ(h)$ carries a natural metric structure. The minimum spanning trees of $Γ(h)$ recently proved to be conclusive for detecting significant data signal in the context of population genetics. In this paper we prove that the parameter space of such minimum spanning trees is organized as a polyhedral fan, called the MST-fan of $Σ(h)$, which subdivides the secondary cone of $Σ(h)$ into parameter cones. We partially describe its local face structure and examine the connection to tropical geometry in virtue of matroids and Bergman fans.
Motivated in part by an observation that the zero forcing number for the complement of a tree on $n$ vertices is either $n-3$ or $n-1$ in one exceptional case, we consider the zero forcing number for the complement of more general graphs under some conditions, particularly those that do not contain complete bipartite subgraphs. We also move well beyond trees and completely study all of the possible zero forcing numbers for the complements of unicyclic graphs and cactus graphs.
An undirected graph G is called a VPT graph if it is the vertex intersection graph of a family of paths in a tree. The class of graphs which admit a VPT representation in a host tree with maximum degree at most h is denoted by [h,2,1]. The classes [h,2,1] are closed by taking induced subgraphs, therefore each one can be characterized by a family of minimal forbidden induced subgraphs. In this paper we associate the minimal forbidden induced subgraphs for [h,2,1] which are VPT with (color) h-critical graphs. We describe how to obtain minimal forbidden induced subgraphs from critical graphs, eve…
The subdivision graph $\mathcal{S}(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the graph obtained by inserting a new vertex into every edge of $G$. Let $G_1$ and $G_2$ be two vertex disjoint graphs. The \emph{subdivision-vertex join} of $G_1$ and $G_2$, denoted by $G_1\dot{\vee}G_2$, is the graph obtained from $\mathcal{S}(G_1)$ and $G_2$ by joining every vertex of $V(G_1)$ with every vertex of $V(G_2)$. The \emph{subdivision-edge join} of $G_1$ and $G_2$, denoted by $G_1\underline{\vee}G_2$, is the graph obtained from $\mathcal{S}(G_1)$ and $G_2$ by joining every vertex of $I(G_1)$ with every vertex of $V(G_2)$, w…
We asymptotically determine the size of the largest family F of subsets of {1,...,n} not containing a given poset P if the Hasse diagram of P is a tree. This is a qualitative generalization of several known results including Sperner's theorem.
For any graph $H$, let ${\rm Forb}^*(H)$ be the class of graphs with no induced subdivision of $H$. It was conjectured in [A.D. Scott, Induced trees in graphs of large chromatic number, {\em Journal of Graph Theory}, 24:297--311, 1997] that, for every graph $H$, there is a function $f_H:\mathbb{N} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ such that for every graph $G \in {\rm Forb}^*(H)$, $χ(G) \leq f_H(ω(G))$. We prove this conjecture for several graphs $H$, namely the paw (a triangle with a pendant edge), the bull (a triangle with two vertex-disjoint pendant edges), and what we call a "necklace," that is, a g…
A tree in an edge-colored connected graph $G$ is called \emph{a rainbow tree} if no two edges of it are assigned the same color. For a vertex subset $S\subseteq V(G)$, a tree is called an \emph{$S$-tree} if it connects $S$ in $G$. A \emph{$k$-rainbow coloring} of $G$ is an edge-coloring of $G$ having the property that for every set $S$ of $k$ vertices of $G$, there exists a rainbow $S$-tree in $G$. The minimum number of colors that are needed in a $k$-rainbow coloring of $G$ is the \emph{$k$-rainbow index} of $G$, denoted by $rx_k(G)$. The \emph{Steiner distance $d(S)$} of a set $S$ of vertice…
We investigate the class of the edge-shelling convex geometries of trees. The edge-shelling convex geometry of a tree is the convex geometry consisting of the sets of edges of the subtrees. For the edge-shelling convex geometry of a tree, the size of the stem of any rooted circuit is two. The class of the edge-shelling convex geometry of a tree is closed under trace operation. We characterize the class of the edge-shelling convex geometry of a tree in terms of trace-minimal forbidden minors. Moreover, the trace-minimal forbidden minors are specified for the class of convex geometries such that…
Attempting to recognize a tree inside a phylogenetic network is a fundamental undertaking in evolutionary analysis. In the last few years, therefore, tree-based phylogenetic networks, which are defined by a spanning tree called a subdivision tree, have attracted attention of theoretical biologists. However, the application of such networks is still not easy, due to many problems whose time complexities are not clearly understood. In this paper, we provide a general framework for solving those various old or new problems from a coherent perspective, rather than analyzing the complexity of each …
A tree is scattered if no subdivision of the complete binary tree is a subtree. Building on results of Halin, Polat and Sabidussi, we identify four types of subtrees of a scattered tree and a function of the tree into the integers at least one of which is preserved by every embedding. With this result and a result of Tyomkyn, we prove that the tree alternative property conjecture of Bonato and Tardif holds for scattered trees and a conjecture of Tyomkin holds for locally finite scattered trees.
Let F be a set of relational trees and let Forbh(F) be the class of all structures that admit no homomorphism from any tree in F; all this happens over a fixed finite relational signature $σ$. There is a natural way to expand Forbh(F) by unary relations to an amalgamation class. This expanded class, enhanced with a linear ordering, has the Ramsey property.
In this paper, we introduce two new graph operations, namely, the subdivision vertex-edge neighbourhood vertex-corona and the subdivision vertex-edge neighbourhood edge-corona on graphs $G_1$, $G_2$ and $G_3$, and the resulting graphs are denoted by $G_1^S\bowtie (G_2^V\cup G_3^E)$ and $G_1^S\diamondsuit(G_2^V\cup G_3^E)$, respectively. Whereafter, the normalized Laplacian spectra of $G_1^S\bowtie (G_2^V\cup G_3^E)$ and $G_1^S\diamondsuit(G_2^V\cup G_3^E)$ are respectively determined in terms of the corresponding normalized Laplacian spectra of the connected regular graphs $G_{1}$, $G_{2}$ and…
A bipartite graph G is known to be Pfaffian if and only if it does not contain an even subdivision H of $K_{3,3}$ such that $G - VH$ contains a 1-factor. However a general characterisation of Pfaffian graphs in terms of forbidden subgraphs is currently not known. In this paper we describe a possible approach to the derivation of such a characterisation. We also extend the characterisation for bipartite graphs to a slightly more general class of graphs.
Partial 1-trees are undirected graphs of treewidth at most one. Similarly, partial 1-DAGs are directed graphs of KellyWidth at most two. It is well-known that an undirected graph is a partial 1-tree if and only if it has no K_3 minor. In this paper, we generalize this characterization to partial 1-DAGs. We show that partial 1-DAGs are characterized by three forbidden directed minors, K_3, N_4 and M_5.
Halin proved in 1978 that there exists a normal spanning tree in every connected graph $G$ that satisfies the following two conditions: (i) $G$ contains no subdivision of a `fat' $K_{\aleph_0}$, one in which every edge has been replaced by uncountably many parallel edges; and (ii) $G$ has no $K_{\aleph_0}$ subgraph. We show that the second condition is unnecessary.
In a paper from 2001 (Journal of the LMS), Diestel and Leader offered a proof that a connected graph has a normal spanning tree if and only if it does not contain a minor from two specific forbidden classes of graphs, all of cardinality $\aleph_1$. Unfortunately, their proof contains a gap, and their result is incorrect. In this paper, we construct a third type of obstruction: an $\aleph_1$-sized graph without a normal spanning tree that contains neither of the two types described by Diestel and Leader as a minor. Further, we show that any list of forbidden minors characterising the graphs wit…
The subdivision graph $\mathcal{S}(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the graph obtained by inserting a new vertex into every edge of $G$. Let $G_1$ and $G_2$ be two vertex disjoint graphs. The \emph{subdivision-vertex corona} of $G_1$ and $G_2$, denoted by $G_1\odot G_2$, is the graph obtained from $\mathcal{S}(G_1)$ and $|V(G_1)|$ copies of $G_2$, all vertex-disjoint, by joining the $i$th vertex of $V(G_1)$ to every vertex in the $i$th copy of $G_2$. The \emph{subdivision-edge corona} of $G_1$ and $G_2$, denoted by $G_1\circleddash G_2$, is the graph obtained from $\mathcal{S}(G_1)$ and $|I(G_1)|$ copies…
For each poset $H$ whose Hasse diagram is a tree of height $k$, we show that the largest size of a family $\cF$ of subsets of $[n]=\{1,..., n\}$ not containing $H$ as an induced subposet is asymptotic to $(k-1){n\choose \fl{n/2}}$. This extends the result of Bukh \cite{bukh}, which in turn generalizes several known results including Sperner's theorem.
We show that the problem of the existence of universal graphs with specified forbidden subgraphs can be systematically reduced to certain critical cases by a simple pruning technique which simplifies the underlying structure of the forbidden graphs, viewed as trees of blocks. As an application, we characterize the trees T for which a universal countable T-free graph exists.
We describe a polynomial-time algorithm which, given a graph $G$ with treewidth $t$, approximates the pathwidth of $G$ to within a ratio of $O(t\sqrt{\log t})$. This is the first algorithm to achieve an $f(t)$-approximation for some function $f$. Our approach builds on the following key insight: every graph with large pathwidth has large treewidth or contains a subdivision of a large complete binary tree. Specifically, we show that every graph with pathwidth at least $th+2$ has treewidth at least $t$ or contains a subdivision of a complete binary tree of height $h+1$. The bound $th+2$ is best …
The energy of a graph is defined as the sum of the absolute values of the eigenvalues of the graph. In this paper, we present a new method to compare the energies of two $k$-subdivision bipartite graphs on some cut edges. As the applications of this new method, we determine the first $\lfloor\frac{n-7}{2}\rfloor$ largest energy trees of order $n$ for $n\ge 31$, and we also give a simplified proof of the conjecture on the fourth maximal energy tree.
The edge intersection graph of a family of paths in host tree is called an $EPT$ graph. When the host tree has maximum degree $h$, we say that $G$ belongs to the class $[h,2,2]$. If, in addition, the family of paths satisfies the Helly property, then $G \in$ Helly $[h,2,2]$. The time complexity of the recognition of the classes $[h,2,2]$ inside the class $EPT$ is open for every $h> 4$. Golumbic et al. wonder if the only obstructions for an $EPT$ graph belonging to $[h,2,2]$ are the chordless cycles $C_n$ for $n> h$. In the present paper, we give a negative answer to that question, we present a…
This paper investigates the computational geometry relevant to calculations of the Frechet mean and variance for probability distributions on the phylogenetic tree space of Billera, Holmes and Vogtmann, using the theory of probability measures on spaces of nonpositive curvature developed by Sturm. We show that the combinatorics of geodesics with a specified fixed endpoint in tree space are determined by the location of the varying endpoint in a certain polyhedral subdivision of tree space. The variance function associated to a finite subset of tree space has a fixed $C^\infty$ algebraic formul…