An algebraic formulation of the graph reconstruction conjecture

The graph reconstruction conjecture asserts that every finite simple graph on at least three vertices can be reconstructed up to isomorphism from its deck - the collection of its vertex-deleted subgraphs. Kocay's Lemma is an important tool in graph reconstruction. Roughly speaking, given the deck of a graph $G$ and any finite sequence of graphs, it gives a linear constraint that every reconstruction of $G$ must satisfy. Let $\psi(n)$ be the number of distinct (mutually non-isomorphic) graphs on $n$ vertices, and let $d(n)$ be the number of distinct decks that can be constructed from these graphs. Then the difference $\psi(n) - d(n)$ measures how many graphs cannot be reconstructed from their decks. In particular, the graph reconstruction conjecture is true for $n$-vertex graphs if and only if $\psi(n) = d(n)$. We give a framework based on Kocay's lemma to study this discrepancy. We prove that if $M$ is a matrix of covering numbers of graphs by sequences of graphs, then $d(n) \geq \mathsf{rank}_\mathbb{R}(M)$. In particular, all $n$-vertex graphs are reconstructible if one such matrix has rank $\psi(n)$. To complement this result, we prove that it is possible to choose a family of sequences of graphs such that the corresponding matrix $M$ of covering numbers satisfies $d(n) = \mathsf{rank}_\mathbb{R}(M)$.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure

Embedding bounded degree spanning trees in random graphs

We prove that if a tree $T$ has $n$ vertices and maximum degree at most $\Delta$, then a copy of $T$ can almost surely be found in the random graph $\mathcal{G}(n,\Delta\log^5 n/n)$.Comment: 14 page

Schnyder decompositions for regular plane graphs and application to drawing

Schnyder woods are decompositions of simple triangulations into three edge-disjoint spanning trees crossing each other in a specific way. In this article, we define a generalization of Schnyder woods to $d$-angulations (plane graphs with faces of degree $d$) for all $d\geq 3$. A \emph{Schnyder decomposition} is a set of $d$ spanning forests crossing each other in a specific way, and such that each internal edge is part of exactly $d-2$ of the spanning forests. We show that a Schnyder decomposition exists if and only if the girth of the $d$-angulation is $d$. As in the case of Schnyder woods ($d=3$), there are alternative formulations in terms of orientations ("fractional" orientations when $d\geq 5$) and in terms of corner-labellings. Moreover, the set of Schnyder decompositions on a fixed $d$-angulation of girth $d$ is a distributive lattice. We also show that the structures dual to Schnyder decompositions (on $d$-regular plane graphs of mincut $d$ rooted at a vertex $v^*$) are decompositions into $d$ spanning trees rooted at $v^*$ such that each edge not incident to $v^*$ is used in opposite directions by two trees. Additionally, for even values of $d$, we show that a subclass of Schnyder decompositions, which are called even, enjoy additional properties that yield a reduced formulation; in the case d=4, these correspond to well-studied structures on simple quadrangulations (2-orientations and partitions into 2 spanning trees). In the case d=4, the dual of even Schnyder decompositions yields (planar) orthogonal and straight-line drawing algorithms. For a 4-regular plane graph $G$ of mincut 4 with $n$ vertices plus a marked vertex $v$, the vertices of $G\backslash v$ are placed on a $(n-1) \times (n-1)$ grid according to a permutation pattern, and in the orthogonal drawing each of the $2n-2$ edges of $G\backslash v$ has exactly one bend. Embedding also the marked vertex $v$ is doable at the cost of two additional rows and columns and 8 additional bends for the 4 edges incident to $v$. We propose a further compaction step for the drawing algorithm and show that the obtained grid-size is strongly concentrated around $25n/32\times 25n/32$ for a uniformly random instance with $n$ vertices

Sharp threshold for embedding combs and other spanning trees in random graphs

When $k|n$, the tree $\mathrm{Comb}_{n,k}$ consists of a path containing $n/k$ vertices, each of whose vertices has a disjoint path length $k-1$ beginning at it. We show that, for any $k=k(n)$ and $\epsilon>0$, the binomial random graph $\mathcal{G}(n,(1+\epsilon)\log n/ n)$ almost surely contains $\mathrm{Comb}_{n,k}$ as a subgraph. This improves a recent result of Kahn, Lubetzky and Wormald. We prove a similar statement for a more general class of trees containing both these combs and all bounded degree spanning trees which have at least $\epsilon n/ \log^9n$ disjoint bare paths length $\lceil\log^9 n\rceil$. We also give an efficient method for finding large expander subgraphs in a binomial random graph. This allows us to improve a result on almost spanning trees by Balogh, Csaba, Pei and Samotij.Comment: 20 page