In this paper we prove a sufficient condition for the existence of a Hamilton cycle, which is applicable to a wide variety of graphs, including relatively sparse graphs. In contrast to previous criteria, ours is based on only two properties: one requiring expansion of ``small'' sets, the other ensuring the existence of an edge between any two disjoint ``large'' sets. We also discuss applications in positional games, random graphs and extremal graph theory.
We provide sufficient conditions for the existence of long cycles in locally expanding graphs, and present applications of our conditions and techniques to Ramsey theory, random graphs and positional games.
The notion of robust expansion has played a central role in the solution of several conjectures involving the packing of Hamilton cycles in graphs and directed graphs. These and other results usually rely on the fact that every robustly expanding (di)graph with suitably large minimum degree contains a Hamilton cycle. Previous proofs of this require Szemerédi's Regularity Lemma and so this fact can only be applied to dense, sufficiently large robust expanders. We give a proof that does not use the Regularity Lemma and, indeed, we can apply our result to suitable sparse robustly expanding digrap…
For a positive constant $α$ a graph $G$ on $n$ vertices is called an $α$-expander if every vertex set $U$ of size at most $n/2$ has an external neighborhood whose size is at least $α\left|U\right|$. We study cycle lengths in expanding graphs. We first prove that cycle lengths in $α$-expanders are well distributed. Specifically, we show that for every $0<α\leq1$ there exist positive constants $n_{0}$, $C$ and $A=O(1/α)$ such that for every $α$-expander $G$ on $n\geq n_{0}$ vertices and every integer $\ell\in\left[C\log n,\frac{n}{C}\right]$, $G$ contains a cycle whose length is between $\ell$ a…
A Hamiltonian decomposition of $G$ is a partition of its edge set into disjoint Hamilton cycles. Manikandan and Paulraja conjectured that if $G$ and $H$ are Hamilton cycle decomposable circulant graphs with at least one of them is nonbipartite, then their tensor product is Hamilton cycle decomposable. In this paper, we have proved that, if $G$ is a Hamilton cycle decomposable circulant graph with certain properties and $H$ is a Hamilton cycle decomposable multigraph, then their tensor product is Hamilton cycle decomposable. In particular, tensor products of certain sparse Hamilton cycle decomp…
We show that every sufficiently large r-regular digraph G which has linear degree and is a robust outexpander has an approximate decomposition into edge-disjoint Hamilton cycles, i.e. G contains a set of r-o(r) edge-disjoint Hamilton cycles. Here G is a robust outexpander if for every set S which is not too small and not too large, the `robust' outneighbourhood of S is a little larger than S. This generalises a result of Kühn, Osthus and Treglown on approximate Hamilton decompositions of dense regular oriented graphs. It also generalises a result of Frieze and Krivelevich on approximate Hamilt…
In this paper we give a complete solution to the Hamilton-Waterloo problem for the case of Hamilton cycles and C4k-factors for all positive integers k.
Investigating a problem of B. Mohar, we show that every one-ended Hamiltonian cubic graph with end degree 3 contains a second Hamilton cycle. We also construct two examples showing that this result does not extend to give a third Hamilton cycle, nor that it extends to the two-ended case.
Extending several previous results we obtained nearly tight estimates on the maximum size of a clique-minor in various classes of expanding graphs. These results can be used to show that graphs without short cycles and other H-free graphs contain large clique-minors, resolving some open questions in this area.
Necessary condition to have Hamiltonian cycle in planar graph is given. Examples of regular planar graphs degree three without Hamiltonian cycle are built.
Akbari, Etesami, Mahini, and Mahmoody conjectured that every proper edge colouring of $K_n$ with $n$ colours contains a Hamilton cycle with $\leq O(\log n)$ colours. They proved that there is always a Hamilton cycle with $\leq 8\sqrt n$ colours. In this note we improve this bound to $O(\log^3 n)$.
We prove new lower bounds on the crossing number of a complete graphs assuming that it is drawn in such a way that it contains a Hamiltonian cycle with no crossings.
We consider the existence of patterned Hamilton cycles in randomly colored random graphs. Given a string $Π$ over a set of colors $\{1,2,\ldots,r\}$, we say that a Hamilton cycle is $Π$-colored if the pattern repeats at intervals of length $|Π|$ as we go around the cycle. We prove a hitting time for the existence of such a cycle. We also prove a hitting time result for a related notion of $Π$-connected.
Watkins (1969) first introduced the generalized Petersen graphs (GPGs) by modifying Petersen graph. Zhou and Feng (2012) modified GPGs and introduced the double generalized Petersen graphs (DGPGs). Kutnar and Petecki (2016) proved that DGPGs are Hamiltonian in special cases and conjectured that all DGPGs are Hamiltonian. In this paper, we construct Hamilton cycles in all DGPGs.
Let $G$ be a finite group. We show that if $|G| = pqrs$, where $p$, $q$, $r$, and $s$ are distinct odd primes, then every connected Cayley graph on $G$ has a hamiltonian cycle.
We first prove a one-to-one correspondence between finding Hamiltonian cycles in a cubic planar graphs and finding trees with specific properties in dual graphs. Using this information, we construct an exact algorithm for finding Hamiltonian cycles in cubic planar graphs. The worst case time complexity of our algorithm is O$(2^n)$.
It is shown that a hamiltonian $n/2$-regular bipartite graph $G$ of order $2n>8$ contains a cycle of length $2n-2$. Moreover, if such a cycle can be chosen to omit a pair of adjacent vertices, then $G$ is bipancyclic.
In this paper we show that $e/n$ is the sharp threshold for the existence of tight Hamilton cycles in random $k$-uniform hypergraphs, for all $k\ge 4$. When $k=3$ we show that $1/n$ is an asymptotic threshold. We also determine thresholds for the existence of other types of Hamilton cycles.
Moser asked for a construction of explicit tournaments on $n$ vertices having at least $(\frac{n}{3e})^n$ Hamilton cycles. We show that he could have asked for rather more.
Following Penrose, we introduce a family of graph functions defined in terms of contractions of certain products of symmetric tensors along the edges of a graph. Special cases of these functions enumerate edge colorings and cycles of arbitrary length in graphs (in particular, Hamiltonian cycles).
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.
The problem of packing Hamilton cycles in random and pseudorandom graphs has been studied extensively. In this paper, we look at the dual question of covering all edges of a graph by Hamilton cycles and prove that if a graph with maximum degree $Δ$ satisfies some basic expansion properties and contains a family of $(1-o(1))Δ/2$ edge disjoint Hamilton cycles, then there also exists a covering of its edges by $(1+o(1))Δ/2$ Hamilton cycles. This implies that for every $α>0$ and every $p \geq n^{α-1}$ there exists a covering of all edges of $G(n,p)$ by $(1+o(1))np/2$ Hamilton cycles asymptotically…
Resolving a conjecture of Kühn and Osthus from 2012, we show that $p= 1/\sqrt{n}$ is the threshold for the random graph $G_{n,p}$ to contain the square of a Hamilton cycle.
We consider how many random edges need to be added to a graph of order $n$ with minimum degree $αn$ in order that it contains the square of a Hamilton cycle w.h.p..
We study sufficient conditions for Hamiltonian cycles in hypergraphs, and obtain both Turán- and Dirac-type results. While the Turán-type result gives an exact threshold for the appearance of a Hamiltonian cycle in a hypergraph depending only on the extremal number of a certain path, the Dirac-type result yields a sufficient condition relying solely on the minimum vertex degree.
We investigate minimum vertex degree conditions for $3$-uniform hypergraphs which ensure the existence of loose Hamilton cycles. A loose Hamilton cycle is a spanning cycle in which only consecutive edges intersect and these intersections consist of precisely one vertex. We prove that every $3$-uniform $n$-vertex ($n$ even) hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$ with minimum vertex degree $δ_1(\mathcal{H})\geq \left(\frac7{16}+o(1)\right)\binom{n}{2}$ contains a loose Hamilton cycle. This bound is asymptotically best possible.
We show that for every $k \in \mathbb{N}$ there exists $C > 0$ such that if $p^k \ge C \log^8 n / n$ then asymptotically almost surely the random graph $G_{n,p}$ contains the $k$\textsuperscript{th} power of a Hamilton cycle. This determines the threshold for appearance of the square of a Hamilton cycle up to the logarithmic factor, improving a result of Kühn and Osthus. Moreover, our proof provides a randomized quasi-polynomial algorithm for finding such powers of cycles. Using similar ideas, we also give a randomized quasi-polynomial algorithm for finding a tight Hamilton cycle in the random…
We show that every sufficiently large oriented graph with minimum in- and outdegree at least (3n-4)/8 contains a Hamilton cycle. This is best possible and solves a problem of Thomassen from 1979.
Whitney proved in 1931 that every 4-connected planar triangulation is hamiltonian. Later in 1979, Hakimi, Schmeichel and Thomassen conjectured that every such triangulation on $n$ vertices has at least $2(n - 2)(n - 4)$ hamiltonian cycles. Along this direction, Brinkmann, Souffriau and Van Cleemput established a linear lower bound on the number of hamiltonian cycles in 4-connected planar triangulations. In stark contrast, Alahmadi, Aldred and Thomassen showed that every 5-connected triangulation of the plane or the projective plane has exponentially many hamiltonian cycles. This gives the moti…
In the random hypergraph $H_{n,p;k}$ each possible $k$-tuple appears independently with probability $p$. A loose Hamilton cycle is a cycle in which every pair of adjacent edges intersects in a single vertex. We prove that if $p n^{k-1}/\log n$ tends to infinity with $n$ then $$\lim_{\substack{n\to \infty 2(k-1) |n}}\Pr(H_{n,p;k}\ contains\ a\ loose\ Hamilton\ cycle)=1.$$ This is asymptotically best possible.
In this paper we consider the number of Hamilton cycles in planar cubic graphs of high cyclic edge-connectivity, answering two questions raised by Chia and Thomassen ("On the number of longest and almost longest cycles in cubic graphs", Ars Combin., 104, 307--320, 2012) about extremal graphs in these families. In particular, we find families of cyclically $5$-edge connected planar cubic graphs with more Hamilton cycles than the generalized Petersen graphs $P(2n,2)$. The graphs themselves are fullerene graphs that correspond to certain carbon molecules known as nanotubes --- more precisely, the…
We prove that the minimum number of Hamilton cycles in a hamiltonian threshold graph of order $n$ is $2^{\lfloor (n-3)/2\rfloor}$ and this minimum number is attained uniquely by the graph with degree sequence $n-1,n-1,n-2,\ldots,\lceil n/2\rceil,\lceil n/2\rceil,\ldots,3,2$ of $n-2$ distinct degrees. This graph is also the unique graph of minimum size among all hamiltonian threshold graphs of order $n.$
A packing of a graph G with Hamilton cycles is a set of edge-disjoint Hamilton cycles in G. Such packings have been studied intensively and recent results imply that a largest packing of Hamilton cycles in G_n,p a.a.s. has size \lfloor delta(G_n,p) /2 \rfloor. Glebov, Krivelevich and Szabó recently initiated research on the `dual' problem, where one asks for a set of Hamilton cycles covering all edges of G. Our main result states that for log^{117}n / n < p < 1-n^{-1/8}, a.a.s. the edges of G_n,p can be covered by \lceil Delta(G_n,p)/2 \rceil Hamilton cycles. This is clearly optimal and improv…
We prove that a random graph $G(n,p)$, with $p$ above the Hamiltonicity threshold, is typically such that for any $r$-colouring of its edges there exists a Hamilton cycle with at least $(2/(r+ 1)-o(1))n$ edges of the same colour. This estimate is asymptotically optimal.
If $G$ is a claw-free hamiltonian graph of order $n$ and maximum degree $Δ$ with $Δ\geq 24$, then $G$ has cycles of at least $\min\left\{ n,\left\lceil\frac{3}{2}Δ\right\rceil\right\}-2$ many different lengths.
We prove that every 52-connected line graph of a rank 3 hypergraph is Hamiltonian. This is the first result of this type for hypergraphs of bounded rank other than ordinary graphs.
We prove that there exists a positive constant εsuch that if \log n / n \le p \le n^{-1+ε}, then asymptotically almost surely the random graph G ~ G(n,p) contains a collection of \lfloor δ(G)/2 \rfloor edge-disjoint Hamilton cycles.
We study $M$-alternating Hamilton paths and $M$-alternating Hamilton cycles in a simple connected graph $G$ on $ν$ vertices with a perfect matching $M$. Let $G$ be a bipartite graph, we prove that if for any two vertices $x$ and $y$ in different parts of $G$, $d(x)+d(y)\geq ν/2+2$, then $G$ has an $M$-alternating Hamilton cycle. For general graphs, a condition for the existence of an $M$-alternating Hamilton path starting and ending with edges in $M$ is put forward. Then we prove that if $κ(G)\geqν/2$, where $κ(G)$ denotes the connectivity of $G$, then $G$ has an $M$-alternating Hamilton cycle…
We survey some recent results on long-standing conjectures regarding Hamilton cycles in directed graphs, oriented graphs and tournaments. We also combine some of these to prove the following approximate result towards Kelly's conjecture on Hamilton decompositions of regular tournaments: the edges of every regular tournament can be covered by a set of Hamilton cycles which are `almost' edge-disjoint. We also highlight the role that the notion of `robust expansion' plays in several of the proofs. New and old open problems are discussed.
We enumerate labelled and unlabelled Hamiltonian cycles in complete $n$-partite graphs $K_{d,d,\ldots,d}$ having exactly $d$ vertices in each part (in other words, Turán graphs $T(nd, n))$. We obtain recurrence relations that allow us to find the exact values $b_{n}^{(d)}$ of such cycles for arbitrary $n$ and $d$
The Bubble-sort graph $BS_n,\,n\geqslant 2$, is a Cayley graph over the symmetric group $Sym_n$ generated by transpositions from the set $\{(1 2), (2 3),\ldots, (n-1 n)\}$. It is a bipartite graph containing all even cycles of length $\ell$, where $4\leqslant \ell\leqslant n!$. We give an explicit combinatorial characterization of all its $4$- and $6$-cycles. Based on this characterization, we define generalized prisms in $BS_n,\,n\geqslant 5$, and present a new approach to construct a Hamiltonian cycle based on these generalized prisms.
In 1972, Woodall raised the following Ore type condition for directed Hamilton cycles in digraphs: Let $D$ be a digraph. If for every vertex pair $u$ and $v$, where there is no arc from $u$ to $v$, we have $d^+u)+d^-(v)\geq |D|$, then $D$ has a directed Hamilton cycle. By a correspondence between bipartite graphs and digraphs, the above result is equivalent to the following result of Las Vergnas: Let $G = (B,W)$ be a balanced bipartite graph. If for any $b \in B$ and $w \in W$, where $b$ and $w$ are nonadjacent, we have $d(w)+d(b) \geq |G|/2 + 1$, then every perfect matching of $G$ is containe…
Whitney proved in 1931 that 4-connected planar triangulations are Hamiltonian. Hakimi, Schmeichel, and Thomassen conjectured in 1979 that if $G$ is a 4-connected planar triangulation with $n$ vertices then $G$ contains at least $2(n-2)(n-4)$ Hamiltonian cycles, with equality if and only if $G$ is a double wheel. On the other hand, a recent result of Alahmadi, Aldred, and Thomassen states that there are exponentially many Hamiltonian cycles in 5-connected planar triangulations. In this paper, we consider 4-connected planar $n$-vertex triangulations $G$ that do not have too many separating 4-cyc…
We use a randomised embedding method to prove that for all α>0 any sufficiently large oriented graph G with minimum in-degree and out-degree δ^+(G),δ^-(G)\geq (3/8+α)|G| contains every possible orientation of a Hamilton cycle. This confirms a conjecture of Häggkvist and Thomason.
In the random hypergraph H=H(n,p;3) each possible triple appears independently with probability p. A loose Hamilton cycle can be described as a sequence of edges {x_i,y_i,x_{i+1}\} for i=1,2,...,n/2. We prove that there exists an absolute constant K>0 such that if p>K\log n/n^2 then lim_{n->oo 4 |n}}Pr(H(n,p;3) contains a loose Hamilton cycle)=1.
We show that there is a constant C such that for any $b<\frac{n}{\ln{n}}-\frac{Cn}{(\ln{n})^{3/2}}$, Maker wins the Maker-Breaker Hamilton cycle game in $n+\frac{Cn}{\sqrt{\ln{n}}}$ steps.
We prove a new sufficient pair degree condition for tight Hamiltonian cycles in $3$-uniform hypergraphs that (asymptotically) improves the best known pair degree condition due to Rödl, Ruciński, and Szemerédi. For graphs, Chvátal characterised all those sequences of integers for which every pointwise larger (or equal) degree sequence guarantees the existence of a Hamiltonian cycle. A step towards Chvátal's theorem was taken by Pósa, who improved on Dirac's tight minimum degree condition for Hamiltonian cycles by showing that a certain weaker condition on the degree sequence of a graph already …
Balogh, Csaba, Jing and Pluhár recently determined the minimum degree threshold that ensures a $2$-coloured graph $G$ contains a Hamilton cycle of significant colour bias (i.e., a Hamilton cycle that contains significantly more than half of its edges in one colour). In this short note we extend this result, determining the corresponding threshold for $r$-colourings.
We prove that if an $n$-vertex graph with minimum degree at least $3$ contains a Hamiltonian cycle, then it contains another cycle of length $n-o(n)$; this implies, in particular, that a well-known conjecture of Sheehan from 1975 holds asymptotically. Our methods, which combine constructive, poset-based techniques and non-constructive, parity-based arguments, may be of independent interest.
The enumeration of Hamiltonian cycles on 2n*2n grids of nodes is a longstanding problem in combinatorics. Previous work has concentrated on counting all cycles. The current work enumerates nonisomorphic cycles -- that is, the number of isomorphism classes (up to all symmetry operations of the square). It is shown that the matrix method used previously can be modified to count cycles with all combinations of reflective and 180-degree rotational symmetry. Cycles with 90-degree rotational symmetry were counted by a direct search, using a modification of Knuth's Dancing Links algorithm. From these…
Hakimi, Schmeichel, and Thomassen in 1979 conjectured that every $4$-connected planar triangulation $G$ on $n$ vertices has at least $2(n-2)(n-4)$ Hamiltonian cycles, with equality if and only if $G$ is a double wheel. In this paper, we show that every $4$-connected planar triangulation on $n$ vertices has $Ω(n^2)$ Hamiltonian cycles. Moreover, we show that if $G$ is a $4$-connected planar triangulation on $n$ vertices and the distance between any two vertices of degree $4$ in $G$ is at least $3$, then $G$ has $2^{Ω(n^{1/4})}$ Hamiltonian cycles.
