The spectrum and toughness of regular graphs

In 1995, Brouwer proved that the toughness of a connected $k$-regular graph $G$ is at least $k/\lambda-2$, where $\lambda$ is the maximum absolute value of the non-trivial eigenvalues of $G$. Brouwer conjectured that one can improve this lower bound to $k/\lambda-1$ and that many graphs (especially graphs attaining equality in the Hoffman ratio bound for the independence number) have toughness equal to $k/\lambda$. In this paper, we improve Brouwer's spectral bound when the toughness is small and we determine the exact value of the toughness for many strongly regular graphs attaining equality in the Hoffman ratio bound such as Lattice graphs, Triangular graphs, complements of Triangular graphs and complements of point-graphs of generalized quadrangles. For all these graphs with the exception of the Petersen graph, we confirm Brouwer's intuition by showing that the toughness equals $k/(-\lambda_{min})$, where $\lambda_{min}$ is the smallest eigenvalue of the adjacency matrix of the graph.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figure, accepted to Discrete Applied Mathematics, special issue dedicated to the "Applications of Graph Spectra in Computer Science" Conference, Centre de Recerca Matematica (CRM), Bellaterra, Barcelona, June 16-20, 201

Edge-dominating cycles, k-walks and Hamilton prisms in 2K22K_2-free graphs

We show that an edge-dominating cycle in a $2K_2$-free graph can be found in polynomial time; this implies that every 1/(k-1)-tough $2K_2$-free graph admits a k-walk, and it can be found in polynomial time. For this class of graphs, this proves a long-standing conjecture due to Jackson and Wormald (1990). Furthermore, we prove that for any \epsilon>0 every (1+\epsilon)-tough $2K_2$-free graph is prism-Hamiltonian and give an effective construction of a Hamiltonian cycle in the corresponding prism, along with few other similar results.Comment: LaTeX, 8 page

How tough is toughness?

The concept of toughness was introduced by Chvátal [34] more than forty years ago. Toughness resembles vertex connectivity, but is different in the sense that it takes into account what the effect of deleting a vertex cut is on the number of resulting components. As we will see, this difference has major consequences in terms of computational complexity and on the implications with respect to cycle structure, in particular the existence of Hamilton cycles and k-factors

Hamilton cycles in graphs and hypergraphs: an extremal perspective

As one of the most fundamental and well-known NP-complete problems, the Hamilton cycle problem has been the subject of intensive research. Recent developments in the area have highlighted the crucial role played by the notions of expansion and quasi-randomness. These concepts and other recent techniques have led to the solution of several long-standing problems in the area. New aspects have also emerged, such as resilience, robustness and the study of Hamilton cycles in hypergraphs. We survey these developments and highlight open problems, with an emphasis on extremal and probabilistic approaches.Comment: to appear in the Proceedings of the ICM 2014; due to given page limits, this final version is slightly shorter than the previous arxiv versio

Connectivity and Cycles

https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/speccoll-faudreerj/1191/thumbnail.jp

Maximum and minimum toughness of graphs of small genus

AbstractA new lower bound on the toughness t(G) of a graph G in terms of its connectivity ϰ(G) and genus γ(G) is obtained. For γ > 0, the bound is sharp via an infinite class of extremal graphs all of girth 4. For planar graphs, the bound is t(G) > ϰ(G)/2 − 1. For ϰ = 1 this bound is not sharp, but for each ϰ = 3, 4, 5 and any ϵ > 0, infinite families of graphs {G(ϰ, ϵ)} are provided with ϰ(G(ϰ, ϵ)) = ϰ, but t(G(ϰ, ϵ)) < ϰ/2 − 1 + ϵ.Analogous investigations on the torus are carried out, and finally the question of upper bounds is discussed. Several unanswered questions are posed

Unsolved Problems in Spectral Graph Theory

Spectral graph theory is a captivating area of graph theory that employs the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of matrices associated with graphs to study them. In this paper, we present a collection of $20$ topics in spectral graph theory, covering a range of open problems and conjectures. Our focus is primarily on the adjacency matrix of graphs, and for each topic, we provide a brief historical overview.Comment: v3, 30 pages, 1 figure, include comments from Clive Elphick, Xiaofeng Gu, William Linz, and Dragan Stevanovi\'c, respectively. Thanks! This paper will be published in Operations Research Transaction