Planar Induced Subgraphs of Sparse Graphs

We show that every graph has an induced pseudoforest of at least $n-m/4.5$ vertices, an induced partial 2-tree of at least $n-m/5$ vertices, and an induced planar subgraph of at least $n-m/5.2174$ vertices. These results are constructive, implying linear-time algorithms to find the respective induced subgraphs. We also show that the size of the largest $K_h$-minor-free graph in a given graph can sometimes be at most $n-m/6+o(m)$.Comment: Accepted by Graph Drawing 2014. To appear in Journal of Graph Algorithms and Application

Harmonious Coloring of Trees with Large Maximum Degree

A harmonious coloring of $G$ is a proper vertex coloring of $G$ such that every pair of colors appears on at most one pair of adjacent vertices. The harmonious chromatic number of $G$, $h(G)$, is the minimum number of colors needed for a harmonious coloring of $G$. We show that if $T$ is a forest of order $n$ with maximum degree $\Delta(T)\geq \frac{n+2}{3}$, then h(T)= \Delta(T)+2, & if $T$ has non-adjacent vertices of degree $\Delta(T)$; \Delta(T)+1, & otherwise. Moreover, the proof yields a polynomial-time algorithm for an optimal harmonious coloring of such a forest.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur

Large rainbow matchings in large graphs

A \textit{rainbow subgraph} of an edge-colored graph is a subgraph whose edges have distinct colors. The \textit{color degree} of a vertex $v$ is the number of different colors on edges incident to $v$. We show that if $n$ is large enough (namely, $n\geq 4.25k^2$), then each $n$-vertex graph $G$ with minimum color degree at least $k$ contains a rainbow matching of size at least $k$