We provide a bijection between the set of factorizations, that is, ordered (n-1)-tuples of transpositions in ${\mathcal S}_{n}$ whose product is (12...n), and labelled trees on $n$ vertices. We prove a refinement of a theorem of Dénes that establishes new tree-like properties of factorizations. In particular, we show that a certain class of transpositions of a factorization correspond naturally under our bijection to leaf edges of a tree. Moreover, we give a generalization of this fact.
This paper is dedicated to the factorizations of the symmetric group. Introducing a new bijection for partitioned 3-cacti, we derive an el- egant formula for the number of factorizations of a long cycle into a product of three permutations. As the most salient aspect, our construction provides the first purely combinatorial computation of this number.
We give a new expression for the number of factorizations of a full cycle into an ordered product of permutations of specified cycle types. This is done through purely algebraic means, extending work of Biane. We deduce from our result a formula of Poulalhon and Schaeffer that was previously derived through an intricate combinatorial argument.
We introduce a bijection between inequivalent minimal factorizations of the n-cycle (1 2 ... n) into a product of smaller cycles of given length, on one side, and trees of a certain structure on the other. We use this bijection to count the factorizations with a given number of different commuting factors that can appear in the first and in the last positions, a problem which has found applications in physics. We also provide a necessary and sufficient condition for a set of cycles to be arrangeable into a product evaluating to (1 2 ... n).
This paper is devoted to the computation of the number of ordered factorizations of a long cycle in the symmetric group where the number of factors is arbitrary and the cycle structure of the factors is given. Jackson (1988) derived the first closed form expression for the generating series of these numbers using the theory of the irreducible characters of the symmetric group. Thanks to a direct bijection we compute a similar formula and provide the first purely combinatorial evaluation of these generating series.
It is known that the number of minimal factorizations of the long cycle in the symmetric group into a product of $k$ cycles of given lengths has a very simple formula: it is $n^{k-1}$ where $n$ is the rank of the underlying symmetric group and $k$ is the number of factors. In particular, this is $n^{n-2}$ for transposition factorizations. The goal of this work is to prove a multivariate generalization of this result. As a byproduct, we get a multivariate analog of Postnikov's hook length formula for trees, and a refined enumeration of final chains of noncrossing partitions.
We introduce a new approach to an enumerative problem closely linked with the geometry of branched coverings; that is, we study the number of ways a permutation can be decomposed into a product of a given number of 2-cycles, 3-cycles, etc. with certain minimality and transitivity conditions imposed on the factors. The method is to encode such factorizations as planar maps with certain "descent structure" and apply a new combinatorial decomposition to make their enumeration more manageable. We apply our technique to count factorizations of permutations with one or two parts, extending earlier w…
We study the factorizations of the permutation $(1,2,...,n)$ into $k$ factors of given cycle types. Using representation theory, Jackson obtained for each $k$ an elegant formula for counting these factorizations according to the number of cycles of each factor. In the cases $k=2,3$ Schaeffer and Vassilieva gave a combinatorial proof of Jackson's formula, and Morales and Vassilieva obtained more refined formulas exhibiting a surprising symmetry property. These counting results are indicative of a rich combinatorial theory which has remained elusive to this point, and it is the goal of this arti…
We give factorizations for weighted spanning tree enumerators of Cartesian products of complete graphs, keeping track of fine weights related to degree sequences and edge directions. Our methods combine Kirchhoff's Matrix-Tree Theorem with the technique of identification of factors.
We develop direct bijections between the set $F_n^k$ of minimal factorizations of the long cycle $(0\,1\,\cdots\, kn)$ into $(k+1)$-cycle factors and the set $R_n^k$ of rooted labelled forests on vertices $\{1,\ldots,n\}$ with edges coloured with $\{0,1,\ldots,k-1\}$ that map natural statistics on the former to generalized Mahonian statistics on the latter. In particular, we examine the generalized major index on forests $R_n^k$ and show that it has a simple and natural interpretation in the context of factorizations. Our results extend those by the present authors (2021), which treated the ca…
Two factorizations of a permutation into products of cycles are equivalent if one can be obtained from the other by repeatedly interchanging adjacent disjoint factors. This paper studies the enumeration of equivalence classes under this relation. We obtain closed form expressions for generating series of inequivalent minimal transitive factorizations of permutations having up to three cycles, and also of permutations with four cycles when factors are restricted to be transpositions. Our derivations rely on a new correspondence between inequivalent factorizations and acyclic alternating digraph…
Consider factorizations into transpositions of an n-cycle in the symmetric group S_n. To every such factorization we assign a monomial in variables w_{ij} that retains the transpositions used, but forgets their order. Summing over all possible factorizations of n-cycles we obtain a polynomial that happens to admit a closed expression. From this expression we deduce a formula for the number of 1-faced embeddings of a given graph.
In 2017, Michael Cuntz gave a definition of reducibility of quiddity cycles of frieze patterns: It is reducible if it can be written as a sum of two other quiddity cycles. We discuss the commutativity and associativity of this sum operator for quiddity cycles and its equivalence classes, respectively. We show that the sum is neither commutative nor associative, but we may circumvent this issue by passing to equivalence classes. We also address the question whether a decomposition of quiddity cycles into irreducible factors is unique and we answer it in the negative by giving counterexamples. W…
A $1-$factorization of a complete graph on $2n$ vertices is said to be $G-$regular if it posseses an automorphism group $G$ acting sharply transitively on the vertex-set. The problem of determining which groups can realize such a situation dates back to a result by Hartman and Rosa (1985) on cyclic groups and, when $n$ is even, the problem is still open. An attempt to obtain a fairly precise description of groups and $1-$factorizations satisfying this symmetry constrain can be done by imposing further conditions. It was recently proved, see Rinaldi (2021) and Mazzuoccolo et al. (2019), that a …
We construct new resolvable decompositions of complete multigraphs and complete equipartite multigraphs into cycles of variable lengths (and a perfect matching if the vertex degrees are odd). We develop two techniques: {\em layering}, which allows us to obtain 2-factorizations of complete multigraphs from existing 2-factorizations of complete graphs, and {\em detachment}, which allows us to construct resolvable cycle decompositions of complete equipartite multigraphs from existing resolvable cycle decompositions of complete multigraphs. These techniques are applied to obtain new 2-factorizatio…
The number of shortest factorizations into reflections for a Singer cycle in GL_n(F_q) is shown to be (q^n-1)^(n - 1). Formulas counting factorizations of any length, and counting those with reflections of fixed conjugacy classes are also given. The method is a standard character-theory technique, requiring the compilation of irreducible character values for Singer cycles, semisimple reflections, and transvections. The results suggest several open problems and questions, which are discussed at the end.
We investigate random minimal factorizations of the $n$-cycle, that is, factorizations of the permutation $(1 \, 2 \cdots n)$ into a product of cycles $τ_1, \ldots, τ_k$ whose lengths $\ell(τ_1), \ldots, \ell(τ_k)$ verify the minimality condition $\sum_{i=1}^k(\ell(τ_i)-1)=n-1$. By associating to a cycle of the factorization a black polygon inscribed in the unit disk, and reading the cycles one after an other, we code a minimal factorization by a process of colored laminations of the disk, which are compact subsets made of red noncrossing chords delimiting faces that are either black or white.…
In this paper, we study factorizations of cycles. The main result is that under certain condition, the number of ways to factor a $d$-cycle into a product of cycles of prescribed lengths is $d^{r-2}.$ To prove our result, we first define a new class of combinatorial objects, multi-noded rooted trees, which generalize rooted trees. We find the cardinality of this new class which with proper parameters is exactly $d^{r-2}.$ The main part of this paper is the proof that there is a bijection from factorizations of a $d$-cycle to multi-noded rooted trees via factorization graphs. This implies the d…
We prove that, for all $\ell$ and $s$, every graph of sufficiently large tree-width contains either a complete bipartite graph $K_{s,s}$ or a chordless cycle of length greater than $\ell$.
We classify connected spanning convex subgraphs of the square cycles. We then show that every spanning tree of $C_n^2$ is contained in a unique nontrivial connected spanning convex subgraph of $C_n^2$. As a result, we obtain a purely combinatorial derivation of the formula for the number of spanning trees of the square cycles.
We count invertible Schrödinger operators (perturbations by diagonal matrices of the adjacency matrix) over finite fieldsfor trees, cycles and complete graphs.This is achieved for trees through the definition and use of local invariants (algebraic constructions of perhapsindependent interest).Cycles and complete graphs are treated by ad hoc methods.
We consider GL_n(F_q)-analogues of certain factorization problems in the symmetric group S_n: rather than counting factorizations of the long cycle (1, 2, ..., n) given the number of cycles of each factor, we count factorizations of a regular elliptic element given the fixed space dimension of each factor. We show that, as in S_n, the generating function counting these factorizations has attractive coefficients after an appropriate change of basis. Our work generalizes several recent results on factorizations in GL_n(F_q) and also uses a character-based approach. As an application of our resul…
Let $T$ be a tree on $n$ vertices. We can regard the edges of $T$ as transpositions of the vertex set; their product (in any order) is a cyclic permutation. All possible cyclic permutations arise (each exactly once) if and only if the tree is a star. In this paper we find the number of realised cycles, and obtain some results on the number of realisations of each cycle, for other trees. We also solve the inverse problem of the number of trees which give rise to a given cycle. On the way, we meet some familiar number sequences including the Euler and Fuss--Catalan numbers.
Tree decompositions whose trees are subgraphs: An application of Simon's factorization
LaBRI, Université de Bordeaux（波尔多大学）；Département d’Informatique, Université libre de Bruxelles（布鲁塞尔自由大学）；Department of Theoretical Computer Science, Jagiellonian University（雅盖隆大学）；Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technologies and Andrej Marušič Institute, University of Primorska（普里莫斯卡大学）；Institute of Informatics, Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics, and Mechanics, University of Warsaw（华沙大学）
The number of spanning trees in a class of directed circulant graphs with generators depending linearly on the number of vertices $βn$, and in the $n$-th and $(n-1)$-th power graphs of the $βn$-cycle are evaluated as a product of $\lceilβ/2\rceil-1$ terms.
The main goal of this article is to introduce new quantitative characteristics of cycles in finite simple connected graphs and to establish relations of these characteristics with the stretch and spanning tree congestion of graphs. The main new parameter is named the support number. We give a polynomial approximation algorithm for the support number with the aid of yet another characteristic we introduce, named the cycle width of the graph.
The Directed Oberwolfach Problem can be considered as the directed version of the well-known Oberwolfach Problem, first mentioned by Ringel at a conference in Oberwolfach, Germany in 1967. In this paper, we describe some new partial results on the Directed Oberwolfach Problem with variable cycle lengths. In particular, we show that the complete symmetric digraph $K_n^{*}$ admits a $( \vec{C}_2, ..., \vec{C}_2, \vec{C}_3) $-factorization for all $ n\equiv 1, 3,$ or $ 7\pmod{8}$. We also show that $K_n^{*}$ admits a $(\vec{C}_2, \vec{C}_{n-2})$-factorization for any integer $n \geq 5$.
The Hamilton-Waterloo Problem HWP$(v;m,n;α,β)$ asks for a 2-factorization of the complete graph $K_v$ or $K_v-I$, the complete graph with the edges of a 1-factor removed, into $α$ $C_m$-factors and $β$ $C_n$-factors, where $3 \leq m < n$. In the case that $m$ and $n$ are both even, the problem has been solved except possibly when $1 \in \{α,β\}$ or when $α$ and $β$ are both odd, in which case necessarily $v \equiv 2 \pmod{4}$. In this paper, we develop a new construction that creates factorizations with larger cycles from existing factorizations under certain conditions. This construction enab…
Recent work by Huang, Lewis, Morales, Reiner, and Stanton suggests that the regular elliptic elements of $\mathrm{GL}_n \mathbb{F}_q$ are somehow analogous to the $n$-cycles of the symmetric group. In 1981, Stanley enumerated the factorizations of permutations into products of $n$-cycles. We study the analogous problem in $\mathrm{GL}_n \mathbb{F}_q$ of enumerating factorizations into products of regular elliptic elements. More precisely, we define a notion of cycle type for $\mathrm{GL}_n \mathbb{F}_q$ and seek to enumerate the tuples of a fixed number of regular elliptic elements whose produ…
We study random typical minimal factorizations of the $n$-cycle into transpositions, which are factorizations of $(1, \ldots,n)$ as a product of $n-1$ transpositions. By viewing transpositions as chords of the unit disk and by reading them one after the other, one obtains a sequence of increasing laminations of the unit disk (i.e. compact subsets of the unit disk made of non-intersecting chords). When an order of $\sqrt{n}$ consecutive transpositions have been read, we establish, roughly speaking, that a phase transition occurs and that the associated laminations converge to a new one-paramete…
We consider questions related to the existence of spanning trees in graphs with the property that after the removal of any path in the tree the graph remains connected. We show that, for planar graphs, the existence of trees with this property is closely related to the Hamiltonicity of the graph. For graphs with a 1- or 2-vertex cut, the Hamiltonicity also plays a central role. We also deal with spanning trees satisfying this property restricted to paths arising from fundamental cycles. The cycle space of a graph can be generated by the fundamental cycles of any spanning tree, and Tutte showed…
We study the asymptotic behaviour of random factorizations of the $n$-cycle into transpositions of fixed genus $g>0$. They have a geometric interpretation as branched covers of the sphere and their enumeration as Hurwitz numbers was extensively studied in algebraic combinatorics and enumerative geometry. On the probabilistic side, several models and properties of permutation factorizations were studied in previous works, in particular minimal factorizations of cycles into transpositions (which corresponds to the case $g=0$ of this work). Using the representation of factorizations via unicellul…
The dominating graph of a graph $H$ has as its vertices all dominating sets of $H$, with an edge between two dominating sets if one can be obtained from the other by the addition or deletion of a single vertex of $H$. In this paper we prove that the dominating graph of any tree has a Hamilton path. We also show how a result about binary strings leads to a proof that the dominating graph of a cycle on $n$ vertices has a Hamilton path if and only if $n\not\equiv 0 \pmod 4$.
Given a set of cycles C of a graph G, the tree graph of G defined by C is the graph T(G,C) whose vertices are the spanning trees of G and in which two trees R and S are adjacent if the union of R and S contains exactly one cycle and this cycle lies in C. Li et al [Discrete Math 271 (2003), 303--310] proved that if the graph T(G,C) is connected, then C cyclically spans the cycle space of G. Later, Yumei Hu [Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Wireless Communications Networking and Mobile Computing (2010), 1--3] proved that if C is an arboreal family of cycles of G which cyclicall…
Burr, Erdős, Faudree, Rousseau and Schelp initiated the study of Ramsey numbers of trees versus odd cycles, proving that $R(T_n, C_m) = 2n - 1$ for all odd $m \ge 3$ and $n \ge 756m^{10}$, where $T_n$ is a tree with $n$ vertices and $C_m$ is an odd cycle of length $m$. They proposed to study the minimum positive integer $n_0(m)$ such that this result holds for all $n \ge n_0(m)$, as a function of $m$. In this paper, we show that $n_0(m)$ is at most linear. In particular, we prove that $R(T_n, C_m) = 2n - 1$ for all odd $m \ge 3$ and $n \ge 50m$. Combining this with a result of Faudree, Lawrenc…
We consider a new type of Hurwitz number, the number of ordered transitive factorizations of an arbitrary permutation into d-cycles. In this paper, we focus on the special case d = 3. The minimal number of transitive factorizations of any permutation into 3-cycles has been worked out by David, Goulden and Jackson. Also, such factorizations for transpositions, the case d = 2, have been considered by Crescimanno and Taylor. Goulden and Jackson have proved the differential equation for the generating series of simple Hurwitz numbers. Based on their results, we use W-operator to prove a differenti…
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…
The graph grabbing game is played on a non-negatively weighted connected graph by Alice and Bob who alternately claim a non-cut vertex from the remaining graph, where Alice plays first, to maximize the weights on their respective claimed vertices at the end of the game when all vertices have been claimed. Seacrest and Seacrest conjectured that Alice can secure at least half of the weight of every weighted connected bipartite even graph. Later, Egawa, Enomoto and Matsumoto partially confirmed this conjecture by showing that Alice wins the game on a class of weighted connected bipartite even gra…
By the Grid Minor Theorem of Robertson and Seymour, every graph of sufficiently large tree-width contains a large grid as a minor. Tree-width may therefore be regarded as a measure of 'grid-likeness' of a graph. The grid contains a long cycle on the perimeter, which is the $\mathbb{F}_2$-sum of the rectangles inside. Moreover, the grid distorts the metric of the cycle only by a factor of two. We prove that every graph that resembles the grid in this algebraic sense has large tree-width: Let $k, p$ be integers, $γ$ a real number and $G$ a graph. Suppose that $G$ contains a cycle of length at le…
For a weighted outerplanar graph, the set of lex short cycles is known to be a minimum cycle basis [Inf. Process. Lett. 110 (2010) 970-974 ]. In this work, we show that the set of lex short cycles is a minimum cycle basis in weighted partial 2-trees (graphs of treewidth two) which is a superclass of outerplanar graphs.
We study the multicolour discrepancy of spanning trees and Hamilton cycles in graphs. As our main result, we show that under very mild conditions, the $r$-colour spanning-tree discrepancy of a graph $G$ is equal, up to a constant, to the minimum $s$ such that $G$ can be separated into $r$ equal parts by deleting $s$ vertices. This result arguably resolves the question of estimating the spanning-tree discrepancy in essentially all graphs of interest. In particular, it allows us to immediately deduce as corollaries most of the results that appear in a recent paper of Balogh, Csaba, Jing and Pluh…
We study random typical minimal factorizations of the $n$-cycle, which are factorizations of $(1, \ldots,n)$ as a product of $n-1$ transpositions, chosen uniformly at random. Our main result is, roughly speaking, a local convergence theorem for the trajectories of finitely many points in the factorization. The main tool is an encoding of the factorization by an edge and vertex-labelled tree, which is shown to converge to Kesten's infinite Bienaymé-Galton-Watson tree with Poisson offspring distribution, uniform i.i.d. edge labels and vertex labels obtained by a local exploration algorithm.
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 $n$…
A subgraph of an edge-coloured graph is called rainbow if all its edges have different colours. The problem of finding rainbow subgraphs goes back to the work of Euler on transversals in Latin squares and was extensively studied since then. In this paper we consider two related questions concerning rainbow subgraphs of complete, edge-coloured graphs and digraphs. In the first part, we show that every properly edge-coloured complete directed graph contains a directed rainbow cycle of length $n-O(n^{4/5})$. This is motivated by an old problem of Hahn and improves a result of Gyarfas and Sarkozy.…
In a sequence of four papers, 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) We prove an optimal result on the number of edge-disjoint …
We generalize the concept of a cycle from graphs to simplicial complexes. We show that a simplicial cycle is either a sequence of facets connected in the shape of a circle, or is a cone over such a structure. We show that a simplicial tree is a connected cycle-free simplicial complex, and use this characterization to produce an algorithm that checks in polynomial time whether a simplicial complex is a tree. We also present an efficient algorithm for checking whether a simplicial complex is grafted, and therefore Cohen-Macaulay.
Let $lct(G)$ be the minimum cardinality of a set of vertices that intersects every longest cycle of a 2-connected graph $G$. We show that $lct(G)\leq k-1$ if $G$ is a partial $k$-tree and that $lct(G)\leq \max \{1, {ω(G){-}3}\}$ if $G$ is chordal, where $ω(G)$ is the cardinality of a maximum clique in $G$. Those results imply that all longest cycles intersect in 2-connected series parallel graphs and in 3-trees.
