1,235 research outputs found
Cuts in matchings of 3-connected cubic graphs
We discuss conjectures on Hamiltonicity in cubic graphs (Tait, Barnette,
Tutte), on the dichromatic number of planar oriented graphs (Neumann-Lara), and
on even graphs in digraphs whose contraction is strongly connected
(Hochst\"attler). We show that all of them fit into the same framework related
to cuts in matchings. This allows us to find a counterexample to the conjecture
of Hochst\"attler and show that the conjecture of Neumann-Lara holds for all
planar graphs on at most 26 vertices. Finally, we state a new conjecture on
bipartite cubic oriented graphs, that naturally arises in this setting.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, 1 table. Improved expositio
On Approximating Restricted Cycle Covers
A cycle cover of a graph is a set of cycles such that every vertex is part of
exactly one cycle. An L-cycle cover is a cycle cover in which the length of
every cycle is in the set L. The weight of a cycle cover of an edge-weighted
graph is the sum of the weights of its edges.
We come close to settling the complexity and approximability of computing
L-cycle covers. On the one hand, we show that for almost all L, computing
L-cycle covers of maximum weight in directed and undirected graphs is APX-hard
and NP-hard. Most of our hardness results hold even if the edge weights are
restricted to zero and one.
On the other hand, we show that the problem of computing L-cycle covers of
maximum weight can be approximated within a factor of 2 for undirected graphs
and within a factor of 8/3 in the case of directed graphs. This holds for
arbitrary sets L.Comment: To appear in SIAM Journal on Computing. Minor change
Walking Through Waypoints
We initiate the study of a fundamental combinatorial problem: Given a
capacitated graph , find a shortest walk ("route") from a source to a destination that includes all vertices specified by a set
: the \emph{waypoints}. This waypoint routing problem
finds immediate applications in the context of modern networked distributed
systems. Our main contribution is an exact polynomial-time algorithm for graphs
of bounded treewidth. We also show that if the number of waypoints is
logarithmically bounded, exact polynomial-time algorithms exist even for
general graphs. Our two algorithms provide an almost complete characterization
of what can be solved exactly in polynomial-time: we show that more general
problems (e.g., on grid graphs of maximum degree 3, with slightly more
waypoints) are computationally intractable
The massless higher-loop two-point function
We introduce a new method for computing massless Feynman integrals
analytically in parametric form. An analysis of the method yields a criterion
for a primitive Feynman graph to evaluate to multiple zeta values. The
criterion depends only on the topology of , and can be checked
algorithmically. As a corollary, we reprove the result, due to Bierenbaum and
Weinzierl, that the massless 2-loop 2-point function is expressible in terms of
multiple zeta values, and generalize this to the 3, 4, and 5-loop cases. We
find that the coefficients in the Taylor expansion of planar graphs in this
range evaluate to multiple zeta values, but the non-planar graphs with crossing
number 1 may evaluate to multiple sums with roots of unity. Our
method fails for the five loop graphs with crossing number 2 obtained by
breaking open the bipartite graph at one edge
- âŠ