More Like this

1. Short Proof of the Asymptotic Confirmation of the Faudree-Lehel Conjecture

   https://doi.org/10.37236/11413  

   Przybyło, Jakub; Wei, Fan (October 2023, The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics)

   Given a simple graph $$G$$, the irregularity strength of $$G$$, denoted $s(G)$, is the least positive integer $$k$$ such that there is a weight assignment on edges $$f: E(G) \to \{1,2,\dots, k\}$$ for which each vertex weight $$f^V(v):= \sum_{u: \{u,v\}\in E(G)} f(\{u,v\})$$ is unique amongst all $$v\in V(G)$$. In 1987, Faudree and Lehel conjectured that there is a constant $$c$$ such that $$s(G) \leq n/d + c$$ for all $$d$$-regular graphs $$G$$ on $$n$$ vertices with $d>1$, whereas it is trivial that $$s(G) \geq n/d$$. In this short note we prove that the Faudree-Lehel Conjecture holds when $$d \geq n^{0.8+\epsilon}$$ for any fixed $$\epsilon >0$$, with a small additive constant $c=28$ for $$n$$ large enough. Furthermore, we confirm the conjecture asymptotically by proving that for any fixed $$\beta\in(0,1/4)$$ there is a constant $$C$$ such that for all $$d$$-regular graphs $$G$$, $$s(G) \leq \frac{n}{d}(1+\frac{C}{d^{\beta}})+28$$, extending and improving a recent result of Przybyło that $$s(G) \leq \frac{n}{d}(1+ \frac{1}{\ln^{\epsilon/19}n})$$ whenever $$d\in [\ln^{1+\epsilon} n, n/\ln^{\epsilon}n]$$ and $$n$$ is large enough. 

   more » « less
2. Maximum spread of graphs and bipartite graphs

   https://doi.org/10.1090/cams/14  

   Breen, Jane; Riasanovsky, Alex W.; Tait, Michael; Urschel, John (December 2022, Communications of the American Mathematical Society)

   Given any graph G G , the spread of G G is the maximum difference between any two eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix of G G . In this paper, we resolve a pair of 20-year-old conjectures of Gregory, Hershkowitz, and Kirkland regarding the spread of graphs. The first states that for all positive integers n n , the n n -vertex graph G G that maximizes spread is the join of a clique and an independent set, with ⌊ 2 n / 3 ⌋ \lfloor 2n/3 \rfloor and ⌈ n / 3 ⌉ \lceil n/3 \rceil vertices, respectively. Using techniques from the theory of graph limits and numerical analysis, we prove this claim for all n n sufficiently large. As an intermediate step, we prove an analogous result for a family of operators in the Hilbert space over L 2 [ 0 , 1 ] \mathscr {L}^2[0,1] . The second conjecture claims that for any fixed m ≤ n 2 / 4 m \leq n^2/4 , if G G maximizes spread over all n n -vertex graphs with m m edges, then G G is bipartite. We prove an asymptotic version of this conjecture. Furthermore, we construct an infinite family of counterexamples, which shows that our asymptotic solution is tight up to lower-order error terms. 

   more » « less
3. On Weak Flexibility in Planar Graphs

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s00373-022-02564-1  

   Lidický, Bernard; Masařík, Tomáš; Murphy, Kyle; Zerbib, Shira (December 2022, Graphs and Combinatorics)

   Abstract Recently, Dvořák, Norin, and Postle introduced flexibility as an extension of list coloring on graphs (J Graph Theory 92(3):191–206, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1002/jgt.22447 ). In this new setting, each vertex v in some subset of V ( G ) has a request for a certain color r ( v ) in its list of colors L ( v ). The goal is to find an L coloring satisfying many, but not necessarily all, of the requests. The main studied question is whether there exists a universal constant $$\varepsilon >0$$ ε > 0 such that any graph G in some graph class $$\mathscr {C}$$ C satisfies at least $$\varepsilon$$ ε proportion of the requests. More formally, for $$k > 0$$ k > 0 the goal is to prove that for any graph $$G \in \mathscr {C}$$ G ∈ C on vertex set V , with any list assignment L of size k for each vertex, and for every $$R \subseteq V$$ R ⊆ V and a request vector $$(r(v): v\in R, ~r(v) \in L(v))$$ ( r ( v ) : v ∈ R , r ( v ) ∈ L ( v ) ) , there exists an L -coloring of G satisfying at least $$\varepsilon |R|$$ ε | R | requests. If this is true, then $$\mathscr {C}$$ C is called $$\varepsilon$$ ε - flexible for lists of size k . Choi, Clemen, Ferrara, Horn, Ma, and Masařík (Discrete Appl Math 306:20–132, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dam.2021.09.021 ) introduced the notion of weak flexibility , where $$R = V$$ R = V . We further develop this direction by introducing a tool to handle weak flexibility. We demonstrate this new tool by showing that for every positive integer b there exists $$\varepsilon (b)>0$$ ε ( b ) > 0 so that the class of planar graphs without $$K_4, C_5 , C_6 , C_7, B_b$$ K 4 , C 5 , C 6 , C 7 , B b is weakly $$\varepsilon (b)$$ ε ( b ) -flexible for lists of size 4 (here $$K_n$$ K n , $$C_n$$ C n and $$B_n$$ B n are the complete graph, a cycle, and a book on n vertices, respectively). We also show that the class of planar graphs without $$K_4, C_5 , C_6 , C_7, B_5$$ K 4 , C 5 , C 6 , C 7 , B 5 is $$\varepsilon$$ ε -flexible for lists of size 4. The results are tight as these graph classes are not even 3-colorable. 

   more » « less
4. Codegree Conditions for Tiling Complete k-Partite k-Graphs and Loose Cycles

   https://doi.org/10.1017/S096354831900021X  

   Gao, Wei; Han, Jie; Zhao, Yi (November 2019, Combinatorics, Probability and Computing)

   Abstract Given two k -graphs ( k -uniform hypergraphs) F and H , a perfect F -tiling (or F -factor) in H is a set of vertex-disjoint copies of F that together cover the vertex set of H . For all complete k -partite k -graphs K , Mycroft proved a minimum codegree condition that guarantees a K -factor in an n -vertex k -graph, which is tight up to an error term o ( n ). In this paper we improve the error term in Mycroft’s result to a sublinear term that relates to the Turán number of K when the differences of the sizes of the vertex classes of K are co-prime. Furthermore, we find a construction which shows that our improved codegree condition is asymptotically tight in infinitely many cases, thus disproving a conjecture of Mycroft. Finally, we determine exact minimum codegree conditions for tiling K (k) (1, … , 1, 2) and tiling loose cycles, thus generalizing the results of Czygrinow, DeBiasio and Nagle, and of Czygrinow, respectively. 

   more » « less
5. Independent dominating sets in graphs of girth five

   https://doi.org/10.1017/s0963548320000279  

   Harutyunyan, Ararat; Horn, Paul; Verstraete, Jacques (May 2021, Combinatorics, Probability and Computing)

   Abstract Let $$\gamma(G)$$ and $${\gamma _ \circ }(G)$$ denote the sizes of a smallest dominating set and smallest independent dominating set in a graph G, respectively. One of the first results in probabilistic combinatorics is that if G is an n -vertex graph of minimum degree at least d , then $$\begin{equation}\gamma(G) \leq \frac{n}{d}(\log d + 1).\end{equation}$$ In this paper the main result is that if G is any n -vertex d -regular graph of girth at least five, then $$\begin{equation}\gamma_(G) \leq \frac{n}{d}(\log d + c)\end{equation}$$ for some constant c independent of d . This result is sharp in the sense that as $$d \rightarrow \infty$$ , almost all d -regular n -vertex graphs G of girth at least five have $$\begin{equation}\gamma_(G) \sim \frac{n}{d}\log d.\end{equation}$$ Furthermore, if G is a disjoint union of $${n}/{(2d)}$$ complete bipartite graphs $$K_{d,d}$$ , then $${\gamma_\circ}(G) = \frac{n}{2}$$ . We also prove that there are n -vertex graphs G of minimum degree d and whose maximum degree grows not much faster than d log d such that $${\gamma_\circ}(G) \sim {n}/{2}$$ as $$d \rightarrow \infty$$ . Therefore both the girth and regularity conditions are required for the main result. 

   more » « less