Distributions of pebbles to the vertices of a graph are said to be solvable when a pebble may be moved to any specified vertex using a sequence of admissible pebbling rules. The optimal pebbling number is the least number of pebbles needed to create a solvable distribution. We provide a simpler proof verifying Pachter, Snevily and Voxman's determination of the optimal pebbling number of paths, and then adapt the ideas in this proof to establish the optimal pebbling number of cycles. Finally, we prove the optimal-pebbling version of Graham's conjecture.
A pebbling step on a graph consists of removing two pebbles from one vertex and placing one pebble on an adjacent vertex. A graph is said to be cover pebbled if every vertex has a pebble on it after a series of pebbling steps. The cover pebbling number of a graph is the minimum number of pebbles such that the graph can be cover pebbled, no matter how the pebbles are initially placed on the vertices of the graph. In this paper we determine the cover pebbling numbers of cycles, finite products of paths and cycles, and products of a path or a cycle with good graphs, amongst which are trees and co…
A pebbling move on a graph $G$ consists of taking two pebbles off one vertex and placing one on an adjacent vertex. The pebbling number of a graph $G$, denoted by $f(G)$, is the least integer $n$ such that, however $n$ pebbles are located on the vertices of $G$, we can move one pebble to any vertex by a sequence of pebbling moves. Let $M(G)$ be the middle graph of $G$. For any connected graphs $G$ and $H$, Graham conjectured that $f(G\times H)\leq f(G)f(H)$. In this paper, we give the pebbling number of some graphs and prove that Graham's conjecture holds for the middle graphs of some even cyc…
We prove a generalization of Graham's Conjecture for optimal pebbling with arbitrary sets of target distributions. We provide bounds on optimal pebbling numbers of products of complete graphs and explicitly find optimal $t$-pebbling numbers for specific such products. We obtain bounds on optimal pebbling numbers of powers of the cycle $C_5$. Finally, we present explicit distributions which provide asymptotic bounds on optimal pebbling numbers of hypercubes.
Graph pebbling is a network model for studying whether or not a given supply of discrete pebbles can satisfy a given demand via pebbling moves. A pebbling move across an edge of a graph takes two pebbles from one endpoint and places one pebble at the other endpoint; the other pebble is lost in transit as a toll. It has been shown that deciding whether a supply can meet a demand on a graph is NP-complete. The pebbling number of a graph is the smallest t such that every supply of t pebbles can satisfy every demand of one pebble. Deciding if the pebbling number is at most k is Π_2^P-complete. In …
Given a distribution of pebbles on the vertices of a graph, say that we can pebble a vertex if a pebble is left on it after some sequence of moves, each of which takes two pebbles from some vertex and places one on an adjacent vertex. A distribution is solvable if all vertices are pebblable; the pebbling threshold of a sequence of graphs is, roughly speaking, the total number of pebbles for which random distributions with that number of pebbles on a graph in the sequence change from being almost never solvable to being almost always solvable. We show that any sequence of connected graphs with …
The pebbling number of a graph $G$, $f(G)$, is the least $p$ such that, however $p$ pebbles are placed on the vertices of $G$, we can move a pebble to any vertex by a sequence of moves, each move taking two pebbles off one vertex and placing one on an adjacent vertex. It is conjectured that for all graphs $G$ and $H$, $f(G\times H)\leq f(G)f(H)$. If the graph $G$ satisfies the odd two-pebbling property, we will prove that $f(C_{4k+3}\times G)\leq f(C_{4k+3})f(G)$ and $f(M(C_{2n})\times G)\leq f(M(C_{2n}))f(G)$, where $C_{4k+3}$ is the odd cycle of order $4k+3$ and $M(C_{2n})$ is the middle gra…
Given a distribution of pebbles on the vertices of a graph G, a {\it pebbling move} takes two pebbles from one vertex and puts one on a neighboring vertex. The {\it pebbling number} Π(G) is the minimum k such that for every distribution of k pebbles and every vertex r, it is possible to move a pebble to r. The {\it optimal pebbling number} Π_{OPT}(G) is the minimum k such that some distribution of k pebbles permits reaching each vertex. We give short proofs of prior results on these parameters for paths, cycles, trees, and hypercubes, a new linear-time algorithm for computing Π(G) on trees, an…
Given a configuration of pebbles on the vertices of a connected graph G, a pebbling move is defined as the removal of two pebbles from some vertex, and the placement of one of these on an adjacent vertex. We introduce the notion of domination cover pebbling, obtained by combining graph cover pebbling with the theory of domination in graphs. The domination cover pebbling number, psi(G), of a graph G is the minimum number of pebbles that must be placed on V(G) such that after a sequence of pebbling moves, the set of vertices with pebbles forms a dominating set of G, regardless of the initial con…
Graph pebbling is a network optimization model for satisfying vertex demands with vertex supplies (called pebbles), with partial loss of pebbles in transit. The pebbling number of a demand in a graph is the smallest number for which every placement of that many supply pebbles satisfies the demand. The Target Conjecture (Herscovici-Hester-Hurlbert, 2009) posits that the largest pebbling number of a demand of fixed size $t$ occurs when the demand is entirely stacked on one vertex. This truth of this conjecture could be useful for attacking many open problems in graph pebbling, including the famo…
A new graph invariant called the secure vertex cover pebbling number, which is a combination of two graph invariants, namely secure vertex cover and cover pebbling number, is introduced in this paper. The secure vertex cover pebbling number of a graph G is the minimum number m so that every distribution of m pebbles can reach some secure vertex cover of G by a sequence of pebbling moves. In this paper, the complexity of the secure vertex cover problem and secure vertex cover pebbling problem are discussed. Also, we obtain some basic results and the secure vertex cover pebbling number for compl…
The $t$-fold pebbling number, $π_t(G)$, of a graph $G$ is defined to be the minimum number $m$ so that, from any given configuration of $m$ pebbles on the vertices of $G$, it is possible to place at least $t$ pebbles on any specified vertex via pebbling moves. It has been conjectured that the pebbling numbers of pyramid-free chordal graphs can be calculated in polynomial time. The $k^{\rm th}$ power $G^{(k)}$ of the graph $G$ is obtained from $G$ by adding an edge between any two vertices of distance at most $k$ from each other. The $k^{\rm th}$ power of the path $P_n$ on $n$ is an important c…
We expand the theory of pebbling to graphs with weighted edges. In a weighted pebbling game, one player distributes a set amount of weight on the edges of a graph and his opponent chooses a target vertex and places a configuration of pebbles on the vertices. Player one wins if, through a series of pebbling moves, he can move at least one pebble to the target. A pebbling move of p pebbles across an edge with weight w leaves the floor of pw pebbles on the next vertex. We find the weighted pebbling numbers of stars, graphs with at least 2|V|-1 edges, and trees with given targets. We give an expli…
Graph pebbling is the study of moving discrete pebbles from certain initial distributions on the vertices of a graph to various target distributions via pebbling moves. A pebbling move removes two pebbles from a vertex and places one pebble on one of its neighbors (losing the other as a toll). For t >= 1 the t-pebbling number of a graph is the minimum number of pebbles necessary so that from any initial distribution of them it is possible to move t pebbles to any vertex. We provide the best possible upper bound on the t-pebbling number of a diameter two graph, proving a conjecture of Curtis, e…
Graph pebbling is a network optimization model for transporting discrete resources that are consumed in transit: the movement of two pebbles across an edge consumes one of the pebbles. The pebbling number of a graph is the fewest number of pebbles t so that, from any initial configuration of t pebbles on its vertices, one can place a pebble on any given target vertex via such pebbling steps. It is known that deciding if a given configuration on a particular graph can reach a specified target is NP-complete, even for diameter two graphs, and that deciding if the pebbling number has a prescribed…
A pebbling move on a graph G consists of the removal of two pebbles from one vertex and the placement of one pebble on an adjacent vertex. Rubbling is a version of pebbling where an additional move is allowed, which is also called the strict rubbling move. In this new move, one pebble each is removed from u and v adjacent to a vertex w, and one pebble is added on w. The optimal rubbling number of a graph G is the smallest number m, such that one pebble can be moved to every given vertex from some pebble distribution of m pebbles by a sequence of rubbling moves. In this paper, we give short pro…
A pebbling move on a graph removes two pebbles at a vertex and adds one pebble at an adjacent vertex. Rubbling is a version of pebbling where an additional move is allowed. In this new move one pebble is removed at vertices v and w adjacent to a vertex u and an extra pebble is added at vertex u. A vertex is reachable from a pebble distribution if it is possible to move a pebble to that vertex using rubbling moves. The rubbling number of a graph is the smallest number m needed to guarantee that any vertex is reachable from any pebble distribution of m pebbles. The optimal rubbling number is the…
In graph pegging, we view each vertex of a graph as a hole into which a peg can be placed, with checker-like ``pegging moves'' allowed. Motivated by well-studied questions in graph pebbling, we introduce two pegging quantities. The pegging number (respectively, the optimal pegging number) of a graph is the minimum number of pegs such that for every (respectively, some) distribution of that many pegs on the graph, any vertex can be reached by a sequence of pegging moves. We prove several basic properties of pegging and analyze the pegging number and optimal pegging number of several classes of …
Two Hamilton paths in $K_n$ are separated by a cycle of length $k$ if their union contains such a cycle. For small fixed values of $k$ we bound the asymptotics of the maximum cardinality of a family of Hamilton paths in $K_n$ such that any pair of paths in the family is separated by a cycle of length $k.$
We prove that a tournament and its complement contain the same number of oriented Hamiltonian paths (resp. cycles) of any given type, as a generalization of Rosenfeld's result proved for antidirected paths.
We prove a lower bound on the length of the longest $j$-tight cycle in a $k$-uniform binomial random hypergraph for any $2 \le j \le k-1$. We first prove the existence of a $j$-tight path of the required length. The standard "sprinkling" argument is not enough to show that this path can be closed to a $j$-tight cycle -- we therefore show that the path has many extensions, which is sufficient to allow the sprinkling to close the cycle.
We establish closed-form expansions for the number of colorings of a path or cycle on n vertices with colors from 1,...,x such that adjacent vertices are colored differently or with colors from y+1,...x.
Let $G$ be a graph with $n$ vertices and $λ_n(G)$ be the least eigenvalue of its adjacency matrix of $G$. In this paper, we give sharp bounds on the least eigenvalue of graphs without given pathes or cycles and determine the extremal graphs. This result gives spectral conditions for the existence of specified paths and cycles in graphs.
We present a recursive formula for the number of ways to color $j$ vertices blue in an r-uniform hyperpath of size $n$ while avoiding a blue monochromatic sub-hyperpath of length k. We use this result to solve the corresponding problem for $(r-1)$-tight r-uniform paths and loose r-uniform cycles. This generalizes some well known results from reliability engineering and analysis.
Let G be a graph with n vertices and mu(G) be the largest eigenvalue of the adjacency matrix of G. We study how large mu(G) can be when G does not contain cycles and paths of specified order. In particular, we determine the maximum spectral radius of graphs without paths of given length, and give tight bounds on the spectral radius of graphs without given even cycles. We also raise a number of natural open problems.
The anti-Ramsey problem was introduced by Erdős, Simonovits and Sós in 1970s. The anti-Ramsey number of a hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$, $ar(n,s, \mathcal{H})$, is the smallest integer $c$ such that in any coloring of the edges of the $s$-uniform complete hypergraph on $n$ vertices with exactly $c$ colors, there is a copy of $\mathcal{H}$ whose edges have distinct colors. In this paper, we determine the anti-Ramsey numbers of linear paths and loose paths in hypergraphs for sufficiently large $n$, and give bounds for the anti-Ramsey numbers of Berge paths. Similar exact anti-Ramsey numbers are obtai…
Let $c$ be an edge-colouring of a graph $G$ such that for every vertex $v$ there are at least $d \ge 2$ different colours on edges incident to $v$. We prove that $G$ contains a properly coloured path of length 2d or a properly coloured cycle of length at least $d+1$. Moreover, if $G$ does not contain any properly coloured cycle, then there exists a properly coloured path of length $3 \times 2^{d-1}-2$.
In this paper, we show that every planar graph without $4$-cycles and $6$-cycles has a partition of its vertex set into two sets, where one set induces a forest, and the other induces a forest with maximum degree at most $2$ (equivalently, a disjoint union of paths). Note that we can partition the vertex set of a forest into two independent sets. However, a pair of independent sets combined may not induce a forest. Thus our result extends the result of Wang and Xu (2013) stating that the vertex set of every planar graph without $4$-cycles and $6$-cycles can be partitioned into three sets, wher…
We prove that the number of Hamiltonian paths on the complement of an acyclic digraph is equal to the number of cycle covers. As an application, we obtain a new expansion of the chromatic symmetric function of incomparability graphs in terms of elementary symmetric functions. Analysis of some of the combinatorial implications of this expansion leads to three bijections involving acyclic orientations.
The known bijections on Dyck paths are either involutions or have notoriously intractable cycle structure. Here we present a size-preserving bijection on Dyck paths whose cycle structure is amenable to complete analysis. In particular, each cycle has length a power of 2. A new manifestation of the Catalan numbers as labeled forests crops up enroute as does the Pascal matrix mod 2. We use the bijection to show the equivalence of two known manifestations of the Motzkin numbers. Finally, we consider some statistics on the new Catalan manifestation.
A cycle is a graph is dominating if every edge of the graph is incident with a vertex of the cycle. In this paper, we investigate the characterization of the class of the forbidden pairs guaranteeing the existence of a dominating cycle and show the following two results: (i) Every $2$-connected $\{P_{5}, K_{4}^{-}\}$-free graph contains a longest cycle which is a dominating cycle. (ii) Every $2$-connected $\{P_{5}, W^{*}\}$-free graph contains a longest cycle which is a dominating cycle. Here $P_{5}$ is the path of order $5$, $K_{4}^{-}$ is the graph obtained from the complete graph of order $…
A graph is outerplanar if it can be embedded in a plane such that all vertices lie on its outer face. The outerplanar Turán number of a given graph $H$, denoted by ${\rm ex}_{\mathcal{OP}}(n,H)$, is the maximum number of edges over all outerplanar graphs on $n$ vertices which do not contain a copy of $H$. In this paper, the outerplanar Turán numbers of cycles and paths are completely determined.
The $k$-colour bipartite Ramsey number of a bipartite graph $H$ is the least integer $n$ for which every $k$-edge-coloured complete bipartite graph $K_{n,n}$ contains a monochromatic copy of $H$. The study of bipartite Ramsey numbers was initiated, over 40 years ago, by Faudree and Schelp and, independently, by Gyárfás and Lehel, who determined the $2$-colour Ramsey number of paths. In this paper we determine asymptotically the $3$-colour bipartite Ramsey number of paths and (even) cycles.
Hajós conjecture asserts that a simple Eulerian graph on n vertices can be decomposed into at most (n - 1)/2 cycles. The conjecture is only proved for graph classes in which every element contains vertices of degree 2 or 4. We develop new techniques to construct cycle decompositions. They work on the common neighbourhood of two degree-6 vertices. With these techniques we find structures that cannot occur in a minimal counterexample to Hajós conjecture and verify the conjecture for Eulerian graphs of pathwidth at most 6. This implies that these graphs satisfy the small cycle double cover conjec…
For any graph $G$ with $a,b\in V(G)$, a shortest path reconfiguration graph can be formed with respect to $a$ and $b$; we denote such a graph as $S(G,a,b)$. The vertex set of $S(G,a,b)$ is the set of all shortest paths from $a$ to $b$ in $G$ while two vertices $U,W$ in $V(S(G,a,b))$ are adjacent if and only if the vertex sets of the paths that represent $U$ and $W$ differ in exactly one vertex. In a recent paper [Asplund et al., \textit{Reconfiguration graphs of shortest paths}, Discrete Mathematics \textbf{341} (2018), no. 10, 2938--2948], it was shown that shortest path graphs with girth fiv…
The total dominator total coloring of a graph is a total coloring of the graph such that each object of the graph is adjacent or incident to every object of some color class. The minimum namber of the color classes of a total dominator total coloring of a graph is called the total dominator total chromatic number of the graph. Here, we will find the total dominator chromatic numbers of cycles and paths.
A set $S$ of vertices of graph $G$ is a \textit{defensive alliance} of $G$ if for every $v \in S$, it holds $|N[v] \cap S| \geq |N[v]-S|$. An alliance $S$ is called $global$ if it is also a dominating set. In this paper, we determine the exact values of the global defensive alliance number of lexicographic products of path and cycles.
The varietal hypercube $VQ_n$ is a variant of the hypercube $Q_n$ and has better properties than $Q_n$ with the same number of edges and vertices. This paper shows that every edge of $VQ_n$ is contained in cycles of every length from 4 to $2^n$ except 5, and every pair of vertices with distance $d$ is connected by paths of every length from $d$ to $2^n-1$ except 2 and 4 if $d=1$.
There has been significant research dedicated towards computing the crossing numbers of families of graphs resulting from the Cartesian products of small graphs with arbitrarily large paths, cycles and stars. For graphs with four or fewer vertices, these have all been computed, but there are still various gaps for graphs with five or more vertices. We contribute to this field by determining the crossing numbers for fifteen such families.
We show that for every positive integer $k$, any tournament can be partitioned into at most $2^{ck}$ $k$-th powers of paths. This result is tight up to the exponential constant. Moreover, we prove that for every $\varepsilon>0$ and every integer $k$, any tournament on $n\ge \varepsilon^{-Ck}$ vertices which is $\varepsilon$-far from being transitive contains the $k$-th power of a cycle of length $Ω(\varepsilon n)$; both bounds are tight up to the implied constants.
In 1981, Alspach conjectured that the complete graph $ K_{n} $ could be decomposed into cycles of arbitrary lengths, provided that the obvious necessary conditions would hold. This conjecture was proved completely by Bryant, Horsley and Pettersson in 2014. Moreover, in 1983, Tarsi conjectured that the obvious necessary conditions for packing pairwise edge-disjoint paths of arbitrary lengths in the complete multigraphs were also sufficient. The conjecture was confirmed by Bryant in 2010. In this paper, we investigate an analogous problem as the decomposition of the complete uniform multi-hyperg…
For a given finite graph $G$ of minimum degree at least $k$, let $G_{p}$ be a random subgraph of $G$ obtained by taking each edge independently with probability $p$. We prove that (i) if $p \ge ω/k$ for a function $ω=ω(k)$ that tends to infinity as $k$ does, then $G_p$ asymptotically almost surely contains a cycle (and thus a path) of length at least $(1-o(1))k$, and (ii) if $p \ge (1+o(1))\ln k/k$, then $G_p$ asymptotically almost surely contains a path of length at least $k$. Our theorems extend classical results on paths and cycles in the binomial random graph, obtained by taking $G$ to be …
We give a shorter proof of the recurrence relation for the domination polynomial $γ(P_{n},t)$ and for the number $γ_{k}(P_{n})$ of dominating $k$-sets of the path with $n$ vertices. For every positive integers $n$ and $k,$ numbers $γ_{k}(P_{n})$ are determined solving a problem posed by S. Alikhani in CID 2015. Moreover, the numbers of dominating $k$-sets $γ_{k}(C_{n})$ of cycles and $γ_{k}(W_{n})$ of wheels with $n$ vertices are computed.
Let $G=(V,E)$ be a graph and let $r\ge 1$ be an integer. For a set $D \subseteq V$, define $N_r[x] = \{y \in V: d(x, y) \leq r\}$ and $D_r(x) = N_r[x] \cap D$, where $d(x,y)$ denotes the number of edges in any shortest path between $x$ and $y$. $D$ is known as an $r$-identifying code ($r$-locating-dominating set, respectively), if for all vertices $x\in V$ ($x \in V\backslash D$, respectively), $D_r(x)$ are all nonempty and different. In this paper, we provide complete results for $r$-identifying codes in paths and odd cycles; we also give complete results for 2-locating-dominating sets in cyc…
We solve four similar problems: For every fixed $s$ and large $n$, we describe all values of $n_1,\ldots,n_s$ such that for every $2$-edge-coloring of the complete $s$-partite graph $K_{n_1,\ldots,n_s}$ there exists a monochromatic (i) cycle $C_{2n}$ with $2n$ vertices, (ii) cycle $C_{\geq 2n}$ with at least $2n$ vertices, (iii) path $P_{2n}$ with $2n$ vertices, and (iv) path $P_{2n+1}$ with $2n+1$ vertices. This implies a generalization for large $n$ of the conjecture by Gyárfás, Ruszinkó, Sárkőzy and Szemerédi that for every $2$-edge-coloring of the complete $3$-partite graph $K_{n,n,n}$ the…
We make progress on three long standing conjectures from the 1960s about path and cycle decompositions of graphs. Gallai conjectured that any connected graph on $n$ vertices can be decomposed into at most $\left\lceil \frac{n}{2}\right\rceil$ paths, while a conjecture of Hajós states that any Eulerian graph on $n$ vertices can be decomposed into at most $\left\lfloor \frac{n-1}{2}\right\rfloor$ cycles. The Erdős-Gallai conjecture states that any graph on $n$ vertices can be decomposed into $O(n)$ cycles and edges. We show that if $G$ is a sufficiently large graph on $n$ vertices with linear mi…
