22,880 research outputs found
Matroids arising from electrical networks
This paper introduces Dirichlet matroids, a generalization of graphic
matroids arising from electrical networks. We present four main results. First,
we exhibit a matroid quotient formed by the dual of a network embedded in a
surface with boundary and the dual of the associated Dirichlet matroid. This
generalizes an analogous result for graphic matroids of cellularly embedded
graphs. Second, we characterize the Bergman fans of Dirichlet matroids as
explicit subfans of graphic Bergman fans. In doing so, we generalize the
connection between Bergman fans of complete graphs and phylogenetic trees.
Third, we use the half-plane property of Dirichlet matroids to prove an
interlacing result on the real zeros and poles of the trace of the response
matrix. And fourth, we bound the coefficients of the precoloring polynomial of
a network by the coefficients of the chromatic polynomial of the underlying
graph.Comment: 27 pages, 14 figure
Broken circuit complexes and hyperplane arrangements
We study Stanley-Reisner ideals of broken circuits complexes and characterize
those ones admitting a linear resolution or being complete intersections. These
results will then be used to characterize arrangements whose Orlik-Terao ideal
has the same properties. As an application, we improve a result of Wilf on
upper bounds for the coefficients of the chromatic polynomial of a maximal
planar graph. We also show that for an ordered matroid with disjoint minimal
broken circuits, the supersolvability of the matroid is equivalent to the
Koszulness of its Orlik-Solomon algebra.Comment: 21 page
Packing Topological Minors Half-Integrally
The packing problem and the covering problem are two of the most general
questions in graph theory. The Erd\H{o}s-P\'{o}sa property characterizes the
cases when the optimal solutions of these two problems are bounded by functions
of each other. Robertson and Seymour proved that when packing and covering
-minors for any fixed graph , the planarity of is equivalent with the
Erd\H{o}s-P\'{o}sa property. Thomas conjectured that the planarity is no longer
required if the solution of the packing problem is allowed to be half-integral.
In this paper, we prove that this half-integral version of Erd\H{o}s-P\'{o}sa
property holds with respect to the topological minor containment, which easily
implies Thomas' conjecture. Indeed, we prove an even stronger statement in
which those subdivisions are rooted at any choice of prescribed subsets of
vertices. Precisely, we prove that for every graph , there exists a function
such that for every graph , every sequence of
subsets of and every integer , either there exist subgraphs
of such that every vertex of belongs to at most two
of and each is isomorphic to a subdivision of whose
branch vertex corresponding to belongs to for each , or
there exists a set with size at most intersecting all
subgraphs of isomorphic to a subdivision of whose branch vertex
corresponding to belongs to for each .
Applications of this theorem include generalizations of algorithmic
meta-theorems and structure theorems for -topological minor free (or
-minor free) graphs to graphs that do not half-integrally pack many
-topological minors (or -minors)
The Complexity of Drawing Graphs on Few Lines and Few Planes
It is well known that any graph admits a crossing-free straight-line drawing
in and that any planar graph admits the same even in
. For a graph and , let denote
the minimum number of lines in that together can cover all edges
of a drawing of . For , must be planar. We investigate the
complexity of computing these parameters and obtain the following hardness and
algorithmic results.
- For , we prove that deciding whether for a
given graph and integer is -complete.
- Since , deciding is NP-hard for . On the positive side, we show that the problem
is fixed-parameter tractable with respect to .
- Since , both and
are computable in polynomial space. On the negative side, we show
that drawings that are optimal with respect to or
sometimes require irrational coordinates.
- Let be the minimum number of planes in needed
to cover a straight-line drawing of a graph . We prove that deciding whether
is NP-hard for any fixed . Hence, the problem is
not fixed-parameter tractable with respect to unless
- …