Finite obstruction sets for lower ideals in the minor order are guaranteed to exist by the Graph Minor Theorem. It has been known for several years that, in principle, obstruction sets can be mechanically computed for most natural lower ideals. In this paper, we describe a general-purpose method for finding obstructions by using a bounded treewidth (or pathwidth) search. We illustrate this approach by characterizing certain families of cycle-cover graphs based on the two well-known problems: $k$-{\sc Feedback Vertex Set} and $k$-{\sc Feedback Edge Set}. Our search is based on a number of algorithmic strategies by which large constants can be mitigated, including a randomized strategy for obtaining proofs of minimality.
The orientation completion problem for a fixed class of oriented graphs asks whether a given partially oriented graph can be completed to an oriented graph in the class. Orientation completion problems have been studied recently for several classes of oriented graphs, yielding both polynomial time solutions and NP-completeness results. Local tournaments are a well-structured class of oriented graphs that generalize tournaments and their underlying graphs are intimately related to proper circular-arc graphs. Proper interval graphs are precisely those which can be oriented as acyclic local tourn…
The orientation completion problem for a class of oriented graphs asks whether a given partially oriented graph can be completed to an oriented graph in the class by orienting the unoriented edges of the partially oriented graph. Orientation completion problems have been studied recently for several classes of oriented graphs, yielding both polynomial time solutions as well as NP-completeness results. Local tournaments are a well-structured class of oriented graphs that generalize tournaments and their underlying graphs are intimately related to proper circular-arc graphs. According to Skrien,…
The $(n-\ell)$-deck of an $n$-vertex graph is the multiset of subgraphs obtained from it by deleting $\ell$ vertices. A family of $n$-vertex graphs is $\ell$-recognizable if every graph having the same $(n-\ell)$-deck as a graph in the family is also in the family. We prove that the family of $n$-vertex graphs having no cycles is $\ell$-recognizable when $n\ge2\ell+1$ (except for $(n,\ell)=(5,2)$). It is known that this fails when $n=2\ell$.
An acyclic set in a digraph is a set of vertices that induces an acyclic subgraph. In 2011, Harutyunyan conjectured that every planar digraph on $n$ vertices without directed 2-cycles possesses an acyclic set of size at least $3n/5$. We prove this conjecture for digraphs where every directed cycle has length at least 8. More generally, if $g$ is the length of the shortest directed cycle, we show that there exists an acyclic set of size at least $(1 - 3/g)n$.
A matching $M$ in a graph $G$ is acyclic if the subgraph of $G$ induced by the set of vertices that are incident to an edge in $M$ is a forest. We prove that every graph with $n$ vertices, maximum degree at most $Δ$, and no isolated vertex, has an acyclic matching of size at least $(1-o(1))\frac{6n}{Δ^2},$ and we explain how to find such an acyclic matching in polynomial time.
Burr and Erdős in 1975 conjectured, and Chvátal, Rödl, Szemerédi and Trotter later proved, that the Ramsey number of any bounded degree graph is linear in the number of vertices. In this paper, we disprove the natural directed analogue of the Burr--Erdős conjecture, answering a question of Bucić, Letzter, and Sudakov. If $H$ is an acyclic digraph, the oriented Ramsey number of $H$, denoted $\overrightarrow{r_{1}}(H)$, is the least $N$ such that every tournament on $N$ vertices contains a copy of $H$. We show that for any $Δ\geq 2$ and any sufficiently large $n$, there exists an acyclic digraph…
We consider vertex coloring of an acyclic digraph $\Gdag$ in such a way that two vertices which have a common ancestor in $\Gdag$ receive distinct colors. Such colorings arise in a natural way when bounding space for various genetic data for efficient analysis. We discuss the corresponding {\em down-chromatic number} and derive an upper bound as a function of $D(\Gdag)$, the maximum number of descendants of a given vertex, and the degeneracy of the corresponding hypergraph. Finally we determine an asymptotically tight upper bound of the down-chromatic number in terms of the number of vertices …
We show that the number of acyclic directed graphs with n labeled vertices is equal to the number of n X n (0,1)-matrices whose eigenvalues are positive real numbers.
The acyclic matching number of a graph $G$ is the largest size of an acyclic matching in $G$, that is, a matching $M$ in $G$ such that the subgraph of $G$ induced by the vertices incident to an edge in $M$ is a forest. We show that the acyclic matching number of a connected subcubic graph $G$ with $m$ edges is at least $m/6$ except for two small exceptions.
We prove that there are 24 4-critical $P_6$-free graphs, and give the complete list. We remark that, if $H$ is connected and not a subgraph of $P_6$, there are infinitely many 4-critical $H$-free graphs. Our result answers questions of Golovach et al. and Seymour.
For an oriented graph $G$, let $f(G)$ denote the maximum chromatic number of an acyclic subgraph of $G$. Let $f(n)$ be the smallest integer such that every oriented graph $G$ with chromatic number larger than $f(n)$ has $f(G) > n$. Let $g(n)$ be the smallest integer such that every tournament $G$ with more than $g(n)$ vertices has $f(G) > n$. It is straightforward that $Ω(n) \le g(n) \le f(n) \le n^2$. This paper provides the first nontrivial lower and upper bounds for $g(n)$. In particular, it is proved that $\frac{1}{4}n^{8/7} \le g(n) \le n^2-(2-\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}})n+2$. It is also shown tha…
A $k$-majority digraph is a directed graph created by combining $k$ individual rankings on the same ground set to form a consensus where edges point in the direction indicated by a strict majority of the rankings. The $k$-majority digraph is used to model voting scenarios, where the vertices correspond to options ranked by $k$ voters. When $k$ is odd, the resulting digraph is always a tournament, called $k$-majority tournament. Let $f_k(n)$ be the minimum, over all $k$-majority tournaments with $n$ vertices, of the maximum order of an induced transitive sub-tournament. Recently, Milans, Schrei…
A symmetric $m\times m$ matrix $M$ with entries taken from $\{0,1,\ast\}$ gives rise to a graph partition problem, asking whether a graph can be partitioned into $m$ vertex sets matched to the rows (and corresponding columns) of $M$ such that, if $M_{ij}=1$, then any two vertices between the corresponding vertex sets are joined by an edge, and if $M_{ij}=0$ then any two vertices between the corresponding vertex sets are not joined by an edge. The entry $\ast$ places no restriction on the edges between the corresponding sets. This problem generalises graph colouring and graph homomorphism probl…
A graph is called a pseudoforest if none of its connected components contains more than one cycle. A graph is an apex-pseudoforest if it can become a pseudoforest by removing one of its vertices. We identify 33 graphs that form the minor-obstruction set of the class of apex-pseudoforests, i.e., the set of all minor-minimal graphs that are not apex-pseudoforests.
An $acyclic$ edge coloring of a graph is a proper edge coloring such that there are no bichromatic cycles. The \emph{acyclic chromatic index} of a graph is the minimum number k such that there is an acyclic edge coloring using k colors and is denoted by $a'(G)$. It was conjectured by Alon, Sudakov and Zaks (and earlier by Fiamcik) that $a'(G)\le Δ+2$, where $Δ=Δ(G)$ denotes the maximum degree of the graph. Alon et.al also raised the question whether the complete graphs of even order are the only regular graphs which require $Δ+2$ colors to be acyclically edge colored. In this paper, using a si…
Building on previous work by Cameron et al. in [3], we give a recurrence for computing the number of acyclic orientations of complete $k$-partite graphs, which can be implemented to obtain a dynamic programming algorithm running in time $n^{O(k)}$, where $n$ is the number of vertices in the graph. We prove our result by using a relationship between the number of acyclic orientations and the number of Hamiltonian paths in complete $k$-partite graphs and providing a recurrence for the latter quantity. We give a simple extension of our algorithm to the situation when we are an edge removal away f…
A linear $r$-uniform hypergraph is called acycilc if it can be constructed starting from one single edge then at each step adding a new edge that intersect the union of the vertices of the previous edges in at most one vertex. Recently, Gyárfás, Ruszinkó and Sárk\''{o}zy initiated the study of the linear Turán numbers of acyclic linear triple systems. In this paper, we extend their results to linear quadruple systems. Here, we concentrate on small trees, paths and matchings. For the case of small trees, we find that for a linear tree $T$, $ex^{lin}_{4}(n,T)$ relates to difficult problems on St…
A walk $W$ in edge-colored graphs is called properly colored (PC) if every pair of consecutive edges in $W$ is of different color. We introduce and study five types of PC acyclicity in edge-colored graphs such that graphs of PC acyclicity of type $i$ is a proper superset of graphs of acyclicity of type $i+1$, $i=1,2,3,4.$ The first three types are equivalent to the absence of PC cycles, PC trails, and PC walks, respectively. While graphs of types 1, 2 and 3 can be recognized in polynomial time, the problem of recognizing graphs of type 4 is, somewhat surprisingly, NP-hard even for 2-edge-color…
Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) can be characterised as directed graphs whose strongly connected components are isolated vertices. Using this restriction on the strong components, we discover that when $m = cn$, where $m$ is the number of directed edges, $n$ is the number of vertices, and $c < 1$, the asymptotic probability that a random digraph is acyclic is an explicit function $p(c)$, such that $p(0) = 1$ and $p(1) = 0$. When $m = n(1 + μn^{-1/3})$, the asymptotic behaviour changes, and the probability that a digraph is acyclic becomes $n^{-1/3} C(μ)$, where $C(μ)$ is an explicit function of…
Let $G$ be a graph. We introduce the acyclic b-chromatic number of $G$ as an analogue to the b-chromatic number of $G$. An acyclic coloring of a graph $G$ is a map $c:V(G)\rightarrow \{1,\dots,k\}$ such that $c(u)\neq c(v)$ for any $uv\in E(G)$ and the induced subgraph on vertices of any two colors $i,j\in \{1,\dots,k\}$ induces a forest. On the set of all acyclic colorings of $G$ we define a relation whose transitive closure is a strict partial order. The minimum cardinality of its minimal element is then the acyclic chromatic number $A(G)$ of $G$ and the maximum cardinality of its minimal el…
We consider a well known model of random directed acyclic graphs of order $n$, obtained by recursively adding vertices, where each new vertex has a fixed outdegree $d\ge2$ and the endpoints of the $d$ edges from it are chosen uniformly at random among previously existing vertices. Our main results concern the number $X$ of vertices that are descendants of $n$. We show that $X/\sqrt n$ converges in distribution; the limit distribution is, up to a constant factor, given by the $d$th root of a Gamma distributed variable. $Γ(d/(d-1))$. When $d=2$, the limit distribution can also be described as a …
An $acyclic$ edge coloring of a graph is a proper edge coloring such that there are no bichromatic cycle s. The \emph{acyclic chromatic index} of a graph is the minimum number k such that there is an acyclic e dge coloring using k colors and is denoted by $a'(G)$. It was conjectured by Alon, Sudakov and Zaks that for any simple and finite graph $G$, $a'(G)\le Δ+2$, where $Δ=Δ(G)$ denotes the maximum degree of $G$. We prove the conjecture for connected graphs with $Δ(G) \le 4$, with the additional restriction that $m \le 2n-1$, where $n$ is the number of vertices and $m$ is the number of edges …
Let $G=(V(G),E(G))$ be a molecular graph, where $V(G)$ and $E(G)$ are the sets of vertices (atoms) and edges (bonds). A topological index of a molecular graph is a numerical quantity which helps to predict the chemical/physical properties of the molecules. The Wiener, Wiener polarity and the terminal Wiener indices are the distance based topological indices. In this paper, we described a linear time algorithm {\bf(LTA)} that computes the Wiener index for acyclic graphs and extended this algorithm for unicyclic graphs. The same algorithms are modified to compute the terminal Wiener index and th…
We call a topological ordering of a weighted directed acyclic graph non-negative if the sum of weights on the vertices in any prefix of the ordering is non-negative. We investigate two processes for constructing non-negative topological orderings of weighted directed acyclic graphs. The first process is called a mark sequence and the second is a generalization called a mark-unmark sequence. We answer a question of Erickson by showing that every non-negative topological ordering that can be realized by a mark-unmark sequence can also be realized by a mark sequence. We also investigate the quest…
A k-ranking of a graph G is a labeling of the vertices of G with values from 1,...,k such that any path joining two vertices with the same label contains a vertex having a higher label. The tree-depth of G is the smallest value of k for which a k-ranking of G exists. The graph G is k-critical if it has tree-depth k and every proper minor of G has smaller tree-depth. As defined in [M. D. Barrus, J. Sinkovic, Uniqueness and minimal obstructions for tree-depth, Discrete Math 339 (2) (2015) 606-613], a graph G is 1-unique if for every vertex v in G, there exists an optimal ranking of G in which v …
A graph is sub-unicyclic if it contains at most one cycle. We also say that a graph $G$ is $k$-apex sub-unicyclic if it can become sub-unicyclic by removing $k$ of its vertices. We identify 29 graphs that are the minor-obstructions of the class of $1$-apex sub-unicyclic graphs, i.e., the set of all minor minimal graphs that do not belong in this class. For bigger values of $k$, we give an exact structural characterization of all the cactus graphs that are minor-obstructions of $k$-apex sub-unicyclic graphs and we enumerate them. This implies that, for every $k$, the class of $k$-apex sub-unicy…
Given a directed graph, an acyclic set is a set of vertices inducing a subgraph with no directed cycle. In this note we show that there exist oriented planar graphs of order $n$ for which the size of the maximum acyclic set is at most $\lceil \frac{n+1}{2} \rceil$, for any $n$. This disproves a conjecture of Harutyunyan and shows that a question of Albertson is best possible.
For $3$-dimensional convex polytopes, inscribability is a classical property that is relatively well-understood due to its relation with Delaunay subdivisions of the plane and hyperbolic geometry. In particular, inscribability can be tested in polynomial time, and for every $f$-vector of $3$-polytopes, there exists an inscribable polytope with that $f$-vector. For higher-dimensional polytopes, much less is known. Of course, for any inscribable polytope, all of its lower-dimensional faces need to be inscribable, but this condition does not appear to be very strong. We observe non-trivial new ob…
We show that for polytopes P_1, P_2, ..., P_r \subset \R^d, each having n_i \ge d+1 vertices, the Minkowski sum P_1 + P_2 + ... + P_r cannot achieve the maximum of \prod_i n_i vertices if r \ge d. This complements a recent result of Fukuda & Weibel (2006), who show that this is possible for up to d-1 summands. The result is obtained by combining methods from discrete geometry (Gale transforms) and topological combinatorics (van Kampen--type obstructions) as developed in Rörig, Sanyal, and Ziegler (2007).
Let c(G) be the smallest number of edges we have to test in order to determine an unknown acyclic orientation of the given graph G in the worst case. For example, if G is the complete graph on n vertices, then c(G) is the smallest number of comparisons needed to sort n numbers. We prove that c(G)\le (1/4+o(1))n^2 for any graph G on n vertices, answering in the affirmative a question of Aigner, Triesch, and Tuza [Discrete Mathematics, 144 (1995) 3-10]. Also, we show that, for every e>0, it is NP-hard to approximate the parameter c(G) within a multiplicative factor 74/73-e.
We show that any planar drawing of a forest of three stars whose vertices are constrained to be at fixed vertex locations may require $Ω(n^\frac{2}{3})$ edges each having $Ω(n^\frac{1}{3})$ bends in the worst case. The lower bound holds even when the function that maps vertices to points is not a bijection but it is defined by a 3-coloring. In contrast, a constant number of bends per edge can be obtained for 3-colored paths and for 3-colored caterpillars whose leaves all have the same color. Such results answer to a long standing open problem.
The main contribution of this paper is a formula for the number of acyclic orientations of a complete bipartite, $K_{n_1,n_2},$ revealing that it is equal to the poly-Bernoulli number $B_{n_1}^{(-n_2)}$ introduced in 1997 by Kaneko. We also give a simple bijective identification of acyclic orientations and lonesum matrices, confirming a 2008 result of Brewbaker, and show that the poly-Bernoulli numbers behave concavely, as well being symmetric. A second goal is to explore the behaviour of more general complete $r$-partite graphs in the space of the number of acyclic orientations. We prove that…
Given an acyclic oriented graph $\vec{H}$ and a graph $G$, we write $G \to \vec{H}$ if every orientation of $G$ has an oriented copy of $\vec{H}$. We define $\vec{R}(\vec{H})$ as the smallest number $n$ such that there exists a graph $G$ satisfying $G \to \vec{H}$. Denoting by $R(H)$ the classical Ramsey number of a graph $H$, we show that $\vec{R}(\vec{H}) \leq 2R(H)^{c \log^2 h}$ for every acyclic oriented graph $\vec{H}$ with $h$ vertices, where $H$ is its underlying undirected graph. We also study the threshold function for the event $\{G(n,p) \to \vec{H}\}$ in the binomial random graph $G…
A k-ranking of a graph G is a labeling of the vertices of G with values from {1,...,k} such that any path joining two vertices with the same label contains a vertex having a higher label. The tree-depth of G is the smallest value of k for which a k-ranking of G exists. The graph G is k-critical if it has tree-depth k and every proper minor of G has smaller tree-depth. We establish partial results in support of two conjectures about the order and maximum degree of k-critical graphs. As part of these results, we define a graph G to be 1-unique if for every vertex v in G, there exists an optimal …
The acyclic chromatic number of a graph is the least number of colors needed to properly color its vertices so that none of its cycles has only two colors. We show that for all $α>2^{-1/3}$ there exists an integer $Δ_α$ such that if the maximum degree $Δ$ of a graph is at least $Δ_α$, then the acyclic chromatic number of the graph is at most $\lceilαΔ^{4/3} \rceil +Δ+ 1$. The previous best bound, due to Gonçalves et al (2020), was $(3/2) Δ^{4/3} + O(Δ)$.
An edge-coloring of a graph G is acyclic if it is a proper edge-coloring of G and every cycle contains at least three colors. We prove that every graph with maximum degree Delta has an acyclic edge-coloring with at most 4 Delta - 4 colors, improving the previous bound of 9.62 (Delta - 1). Our bound results from the analysis of a very simple randomised procedure using the so-called entropy compression method. We show that the expected running time of the procedure is O(mn Delta^2 log Delta), where n and m are the number of vertices and edges of G. Such a randomised procedure running in expected…
We construct and study a class of algebras associated to generalized layered graphs, i.e. directed graphs with a ranking function on their vertices. Each finite directed acyclic graph admits countably many structures of a generalized layered graph. We construct linear bases in such algebras and compute their Hilbert series. Our interest to generalized layered graphs and algebras associated to those graphs is motivated by their relations to factorizations of polynomials over noncommutative rings.
The \emph{slow-coloring game} is played by Lister and Painter on a graph $G$. Initially, all vertices of $G$ are uncolored. In each round, Lister marks a nonempty set $M$ of uncolored vertices, and Painter colors a subset of $M$ that is independent in $G$. The game ends when all vertices are colored. The score of the game is the sum of the sizes of all sets marked by Lister. The goal of Painter is to minimize the score, while Lister tries to maximize it. We provide strategies for Painter on various classes of graphs whose vertices can be partitioned into a bounded number of sets inducing fores…
A graph is called 1-planar if it can be drawn on the plane so that each edge is crossed by at most one other edge. In this paper, we establish a local property of 1-planar graphs which describes the structure in the neighborhood of small vertices (i.e. vertices of degree no more than seven). Meanwhile, some new classes of light graphs in 1-planar graphs with the bounded degree are found. Therefore, two open problems presented by Fabrici and Madaras [The structure of 1-planar graphs, Discrete Mathematics, 307, (2007), 854-865] are solved. Furthermore, we prove that each 1-planar graph $G$ with …
A $k$-colouring (not necessarily proper) of vertices of a graph is called {\it acyclic}, if for every pair of distinct colours $i$ and $j$ the subgraph induced by the edges whose endpoints have colours $i$ and $j$ is acyclic. In the paper we consider some generalised acyclic $k$-colourings, namely, we require that each colour class induces an acyclic or bounded degree graph. Mainly we focus on graphs with maximum degree 5. We prove that any such graph has an acyclic $5$-colouring such that each colour class induces an acyclic graph with maximum degree at most 4. We prove that the problem of de…
We study graphs which admit an acyclic orientation that contains an out-branching and in-branching which are arc-disjoint (such an orientation is called {\bf good}). A {\bf 2T-graph} is a graph whose edge set can be decomposed into two edge-disjoint spanning trees. Clearly a graph has a good orientation if and only if it contains a spanning 2T-graph with a good orientation, implying that 2T-graphs play a central role. Vertex-minimal 2T-graphs with at least two vertices, also known as {\bf generic circuits}, play an important role in rigidity theory for graphs. It was shown in \cite{bangGOpaper…
For a class $\mathcal C$ of graphs, we define $\mathcal C$-edge-brittleness of a graph $G$ as the minimum $\ell$ such that the vertex set of $G$ can be partitioned into sets inducing a subgraph in $\mathcal C$ and there are $\ell$ edges having ends in distinct parts. We characterize classes of graphs having bounded $\mathcal C$-edge-brittleness for a class $\mathcal C$ of forests or a class $\mathcal C$ of graphs with no $K_4\setminus e$ topological minors in terms of forbidden obstructions. We also define $\mathcal C$-vertex-brittleness of a graph $G$ as the minimum $\ell$ such that the edge …
Let $H$ be a directed acyclic graph other than a rooted star. It is known that there are constants $c(H)$ and $C(H)$ such that the following holds for the complete directed graph $D_n$. There are at most $C\log n$ directed acyclic subgraphs of $D_n$ that cover every $H$-copy of $D_n$, while fewer than $c\log n$ directed acyclic subgraphs of $D_n$ do not cover all $H$-copies. Here this dichotomy is considerably strengthened. Let ${\vec G}(n,p)$ denote the random directed graph. The {\em fractional arboricity} of $H$ is $a(H) = max \{\frac{|E(H')|}{|V(H')|-1}\}$, where the maximum is over all no…
A blocking quadruple (BQ) is a quadruple of vertices of a graph such that any two vertices of the quadruple either miss (have no neighbours on) some path connecting the remaining two vertices of the quadruple, or are connected by some path missed by the remaining two vertices. This is akin to the notion of asteroidal triple used in the classical characterization of interval graphs by Lekkerkerker and Boland. We show that a circular-arc graph cannot have a blocking quadruple. We also observe that the absence of blocking quadruples is not in general sufficient to guarantee that a graph is a circ…
