Hamilton cycles in highly connected and expanding graphs

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.Comment: 19 page

On prisms, M\"obius ladders and the cycle space of dense graphs

For a graph X, let f_0(X) denote its number of vertices, d(X) its minimum degree and Z_1(X;Z/2) its cycle space in the standard graph-theoretical sense (i.e. 1-dimensional cycle group in the sense of simplicial homology theory with Z/2-coefficients). Call a graph Hamilton-generated if and only if the set of all Hamilton circuits is a Z/2-generating system for Z_1(X;Z/2). The main purpose of this paper is to prove the following: for every s > 0 there exists n_0 such that for every graph X with f_0(X) >= n_0 vertices, (1) if d(X) >= (1/2 + s) f_0(X) and f_0(X) is odd, then X is Hamilton-generated, (2) if d(X) >= (1/2 + s) f_0(X) and f_0(X) is even, then the set of all Hamilton circuits of X generates a codimension-one subspace of Z_1(X;Z/2), and the set of all circuits of X having length either f_0(X)-1 or f_0(X) generates all of Z_1(X;Z/2), (3) if d(X) >= (1/4 + s) f_0(X) and X is square bipartite, then X is Hamilton-generated. All these degree-conditions are essentially best-possible. The implications in (1) and (2) give an asymptotic affirmative answer to a special case of an open conjecture which according to [European J. Combin. 4 (1983), no. 3, p. 246] originates with A. Bondy.Comment: 33 pages; 5 figure

Local resilience and Hamiltonicity Maker-Breaker games in random-regular graphs

For an increasing monotone graph property \mP the \emph{local resilience} of a graph $G$ with respect to \mP is the minimal $r$ for which there exists of a subgraph $H\subseteq G$ with all degrees at most $r$ such that the removal of the edges of $H$ from $G$ creates a graph that does not possesses \mP. This notion, which was implicitly studied for some ad-hoc properties, was recently treated in a more systematic way in a paper by Sudakov and Vu. Most research conducted with respect to this distance notion focused on the Binomial random graph model \GNP and some families of pseudo-random graphs with respect to several graph properties such as containing a perfect matching and being Hamiltonian, to name a few. In this paper we continue to explore the local resilience notion, but turn our attention to random and pseudo-random \emph{regular} graphs of constant degree. We investigate the local resilience of the typical random $d$-regular graph with respect to edge and vertex connectivity, containing a perfect matching, and being Hamiltonian. In particular we prove that for every positive $\epsilon$ and large enough values of $d$ with high probability the local resilience of the random $d$-regular graph, \GND, with respect to being Hamiltonian is at least $(1-\epsilon)d/6$. We also prove that for the Binomial random graph model \GNP, for every positive $\epsilon>0$ and large enough values of $K$, if $p>\frac{K\ln n}{n}$ then with high probability the local resilience of \GNP with respect to being Hamiltonian is at least $(1-\epsilon)np/6$. Finally, we apply similar techniques to Positional Games and prove that if $d$ is large enough then with high probability a typical random $d$-regular graph $G$ is such that in the unbiased Maker-Breaker game played on the edges of $G$, Maker has a winning strategy to create a Hamilton cycle.Comment: 34 pages. 1 figur