Combinatorial problems of (quasi-)crystallography

Several combinatorial problems of (quasi-)crystallography are reviewed with special emphasis on a unified approach, valid for both crystals and quasicrystals. In particular, we consider planar sublattices, similarity sublattices, coincidence sublattices, their module counterparts, and central and averaged shelling. The corresponding counting functions are encapsulated in Dirichlet series generating functions, with explicit results for the triangular lattice and the twelvefold symmetric shield tiling. Other combinatorial properties are briefly summarised.Comment: 12 pages, 2 PostScript figures, LaTeX using vch-book.cl

Combinatorial Problems on HH-graphs

Bir\'{o}, Hujter, and Tuza introduced the concept of $H$-graphs (1992), intersection graphs of connected subgraphs of a subdivision of a graph $H$. They naturally generalize many important classes of graphs, e.g., interval graphs and circular-arc graphs. We continue the study of these graph classes by considering coloring, clique, and isomorphism problems on $H$-graphs. We show that for any fixed $H$ containing a certain 3-node, 6-edge multigraph as a minor that the clique problem is APX-hard on $H$-graphs and the isomorphism problem is isomorphism-complete. We also provide positive results on $H$-graphs. Namely, when $H$ is a cactus the clique problem can be solved in polynomial time. Also, when a graph $G$ has a Helly $H$-representation, the clique problem can be solved in polynomial time. Finally, we observe that one can use treewidth techniques to show that both the $k$-clique and list $k$-coloring problems are FPT on $H$-graphs. These FPT results apply more generally to treewidth-bounded graph classes where treewidth is bounded by a function of the clique number

Some combinatorial problems

AbstractThere are many interesting and sophisticated problems posed in the IMO, Putnam and domestic Olympiads. Some of these problems have deep mathematical background, nice generalizations, and lead to new areas of research in combinatorics. We investigate several topics in this category and mention some results and open problems

Combinatorial problems in finite fields and Sidon sets

We use Sidon sets to present an elementary method to study some combinatorial problems in finite fields, such as sum product estimates, solubility of some equations and distribution of sequences in small intervals. We obtain classic and more recent results avoiding the use of exponential sums, the usual tool to deal with these problems.Comment: 13 page

Recognizing Graph Theoretic Properties with Polynomial Ideals

Many hard combinatorial problems can be modeled by a system of polynomial equations. N. Alon coined the term polynomial method to describe the use of nonlinear polynomials when solving combinatorial problems. We continue the exploration of the polynomial method and show how the algorithmic theory of polynomial ideals can be used to detect k-colorability, unique Hamiltonicity, and automorphism rigidity of graphs. Our techniques are diverse and involve Nullstellensatz certificates, linear algebra over finite fields, Groebner bases, toric algebra, convex programming, and real algebraic geometry.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figure