Chromatic Polynomials for J(∏H)IJ(\prod H)I Strip Graphs and their Asymptotic Limits

We calculate the chromatic polynomials $P$ for $n$-vertex strip graphs of the form $J(\prod_{\ell=1}^m H)I$, where $J$ and $I$ are various subgraphs on the left and right ends of the strip, whose bulk is comprised of $m$-fold repetitions of a subgraph $H$. The strips have free boundary conditions in the longitudinal direction and free or periodic boundary conditions in the transverse direction. This extends our earlier calculations for strip graphs of the form $(\prod_{\ell=1}^m H)I$. We use a generating function method. From these results we compute the asymptotic limiting function $W=\lim_{n \to \infty}P^{1/n}$; for $q \in {\mathbb Z}_+$ this has physical significance as the ground state degeneracy per site (exponent of the ground state entropy) of the $q$-state Potts antiferromagnet on the given strip. In the complex $q$ plane, $W$ is an analytic function except on a certain continuous locus ${\cal B}$. In contrast to the $(\prod_{\ell=1}^m H)I$ strip graphs, where ${\cal B}$ (i) is independent of $I$, and (ii) consists of arcs and possible line segments that do not enclose any regions in the $q$ plane, we find that for some $J(\prod_{\ell=1}^m H)I$ strip graphs, ${\cal B}$ (i) does depend on $I$ and $J$, and (ii) can enclose regions in the $q$ plane. Our study elucidates the effects of different end subgraphs $I$ and $J$ and of boundary conditions on the infinite-length limit of the strip graphs.Comment: 33 pages, Latex, 7 encapsulated postscript figures, Physica A, in press, with some typos fixe

Planting trees in graphs, and finding them back

In this paper we study detection and reconstruction of planted structures in Erd\H{o}s-R\'enyi random graphs. Motivated by a problem of communication security, we focus on planted structures that consist in a tree graph. For planted line graphs, we establish the following phase diagram. In a low density region where the average degree $\lambda$ of the initial graph is below some critical value $\lambda_c=1$, detection and reconstruction go from impossible to easy as the line length $K$ crosses some critical value $f(\lambda)\ln(n)$, where $n$ is the number of nodes in the graph. In the high density region $\lambda>\lambda_c$, detection goes from impossible to easy as $K$ goes from $o(\sqrt{n})$ to $\omega(\sqrt{n})$, and reconstruction remains impossible so long as $K=o(n)$. For $D$-ary trees of varying depth $h$ and $2\le D\le O(1)$, we identify a low-density region $\lambda<\lambda_D$, such that the following holds. There is a threshold $h*=g(D)\ln(\ln(n))$ with the following properties. Detection goes from feasible to impossible as $h$ crosses $h*$. We also show that only partial reconstruction is feasible at best for $h\ge h*$. We conjecture a similar picture to hold for $D$-ary trees as for lines in the high-density region $\lambda>\lambda_D$, but confirm only the following part of this picture: Detection is easy for $D$-ary trees of size $\omega(\sqrt{n})$, while at best only partial reconstruction is feasible for $D$-ary trees of any size $o(n)$. These results are in contrast with the corresponding picture for detection and reconstruction of {\em low rank} planted structures, such as dense subgraphs and block communities: We observe a discrepancy between detection and reconstruction, the latter being impossible for a wide range of parameters where detection is easy. This property does not hold for previously studied low rank planted structures

Three Existence Problems in Extremal Graph Theory

Proving the existence or nonexistence of structures with specified properties is the impetus for many classical results in discrete mathematics. In this thesis we take this approach to three different structural questions rooted in extremal graph theory. When studying graph representations, we seek efficient ways to encode the structure of a graph. For example, an {\it interval representation} of a graph $G$ is an assignment of intervals on the real line to the vertices of $G$ such that two vertices are adjacent if and only if their intervals intersect. We consider graphs that have {\it bar $k$-visibility representations}, a generalization of both interval representations and another well-studied class of representations known as visibility representations. We obtain results on $\mathcal{F}_k$, the family of graphs having bar $k$-visibility representations. We also study $\bigcup_{k=0}^{\infty} \mathcal{F}_k$. In particular, we determine the largest complete graph having a bar $k$-visibility representation, and we show that there are graphs that do not have bar $k$-visibility representations for any $k$. Graphs arise naturally as models of networks, and there has been much study of the movement of information or resources in graphs. Lampert and Slater \cite{LS} introduced {\it acquisition} in weighted graphs, whereby weight moves around $G$ provided that each move transfers weight from a vertex to a heavier neighbor. Our goal in making acquisition moves is to consolidate all of the weight in $G$ on the minimum number of vertices; this minimum number is the {\it acquisition number} of $G$. We study three variations of acquisition in graphs: when a move must transfer all the weight from a vertex to its neighbor, when each move transfers a single unit of weight, and when a move can transfer any positive amount of weight. We consider acquisition numbers in various families of graphs, including paths, cycles, trees, and graphs with diameter $2$. We also study, under the various acquisition models, those graphs in which all the weight can be moved to a single vertex. Restrictive local conditions often have far-reaching impacts on the global structure of mathematical objects. Some local conditions are so limiting that very few objects satisfy the requirements. For example, suppose that we seek a graph in which every two vertices have exactly one common neighbor. Such graphs are called {\it friendship graphs}, and Wilf~\cite{Wilf} proved that the only such graphs consist of edge-disjoint triangles sharing a common vertex. We study a related structural restriction where similar phenomena occur. For a fixed graph $H$, we consider those graphs that do not contain $H$ and such that the addition of any edge completes exactly one copy of $H$. Such a graph is called {\it uniquely $H$-saturated}. We study the existence of uniquely $H$-saturated graphs when $H$ is a path or a cycle. In particular, we determine all of the uniquely $C_4$-saturated graphs; there are exactly ten. Interestingly, the uniquely $C_{5}$-saturated graphs are precisely the friendship graphs characterized by Wilf

The Infinite Server Problem

We study a variant of the k-server problem, the infinite server problem, in which infinitely many servers reside initially at a particular point of the metric space and serve a sequence of requests. In the framework of competitive analysis, we show a surprisingly tight connection between this problem and the (h,k)-server problem, in which an online algorithm with k servers competes against an offline algorithm with h servers. Specifically, we show that the infinite server problem has bounded competitive ratio if and only if the (h,k)-server problem has bounded competitive ratio for some k=O(h). We give a lower bound of 3.146 for the competitive ratio of the infinite server problem, which implies the same lower bound for the (h,k)-server problem even when k>>h and holds also for the line metric; the previous known bounds were 2.4 for general metric spaces and 2 for the line. For weighted trees and layered graphs we obtain upper bounds, although they depend on the depth. Of particular interest is the infinite server problem on the line, which we show to be equivalent to the seemingly easier case in which all requests are in a fixed bounded interval away from the original position of the servers. This is a special case of a more general reduction from arbitrary metric spaces to bounded subspaces. Unfortunately, classical approaches (double coverage and generalizations, work function algorithm, balancing algorithms) fail even for this special case

Complexity of Computing the Anti-Ramsey Numbers for Paths

The anti-Ramsey numbers are a fundamental notion in graph theory, introduced in 1978, by Erd\" os, Simonovits and S\' os. For given graphs $G$ and $H$ the \emph{anti-Ramsey number} $\textrm{ar}(G,H)$ is defined to be the maximum number $k$ such that there exists an assignment of $k$ colors to the edges of $G$ in which every copy of $H$ in $G$ has at least two edges with the same color. There are works on the computational complexity of the problem when $H$ is a star. Along this line of research, we study the complexity of computing the anti-Ramsey number $\textrm{ar}(G,P_k)$, where $P_k$ is a path of length $k$. First, we observe that when $k = \Omega(n)$, the problem is hard; hence, the challenging part is the computational complexity of the problem when $k$ is a fixed constant. We provide a characterization of the problem for paths of constant length. Our first main contribution is to prove that computing $\textrm{ar}(G,P_k)$ for every integer $k>2$ is NP-hard. We obtain this by providing several structural properties of such coloring in graphs. We investigate further and show that approximating $\textrm{ar}(G,P_3)$ to a factor of $n^{-1/2 - \epsilon}$ is hard already in $3$-partite graphs, unless P=NP. We also study the exact complexity of the precolored version and show that there is no subexponential algorithm for the problem unless ETH fails for any fixed constant $k$. Given the hardness of approximation and parametrization of the problem, it is natural to study the problem on restricted graph families. We introduce the notion of color connected coloring and employing this structural property. We obtain a linear time algorithm to compute $\textrm{ar}(G,P_k)$, for every integer $k$, when the host graph, $G$, is a tree