Recognizing Graphs Close to Bipartite Graphs with an Application to Colouring Reconfiguration

We continue research into a well-studied family of problems that ask whether the vertices of a graph can be partitioned into sets $A$ and~$B$, where $A$ is an independent set and $B$ induces a graph from some specified graph class ${\cal G}$. We let ${\cal G}$ be the class of $k$-degenerate graphs. This problem is known to be polynomial-time solvable if $k=0$ (bipartite graphs) and NP-complete if $k=1$ (near-bipartite graphs) even for graphs of maximum degree $4$. Yang and Yuan [DM, 2006] showed that the $k=1$ case is polynomial-time solvable for graphs of maximum degree $3$. This also follows from a result of Catlin and Lai [DM, 1995]. We consider graphs of maximum degree $k+2$ on $n$ vertices. We show how to find $A$ and $B$ in $O(n)$ time for $k=1$, and in $O(n^2)$ time for $k\geq 2$. Together, these results provide an algorithmic version of a result of Catlin [JCTB, 1979] and also provide an algorithmic version of a generalization of Brook's Theorem, which was proven in a more general way by Borodin, Kostochka and Toft [DM, 2000] and Matamala [JGT, 2007]. Moreover, the two results enable us to complete the complexity classification of an open problem of Feghali et al. [JGT, 2016]: finding a path in the vertex colouring reconfiguration graph between two given $\ell$-colourings of a graph of maximum degree $k$

Partitioning a triangle-free planar graph into a forest and a forest of bounded degree

An $({\cal F},{\cal F}_d)$-partition of a graph is a vertex-partition into two sets $F$ and $F_d$ such that the graph induced by $F$ is a forest and the one induced by $F_d$ is a forest with maximum degree at most $d$. We prove that every triangle-free planar graph admits an $({\cal F},{\cal F}_5)$-partition. Moreover we show that if for some integer $d$ there exists a triangle-free planar graph that does not admit an $({\cal F},{\cal F}_d)$-partition, then it is an NP-complete problem to decide whether a triangle-free planar graph admits such a partition.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figure

Decomposing a triangle-free planar graph into a forest and a subcubic forest

We strengthen a result of Dross, Montassier and Pinlou (2017) that the vertex set of every triangle-free planar graph can be decomposed into a set that induces a forest and a set that induces a forest with maximum degree at most $5$, showing that $5$ can be replaced by $3$.Comment: 8 pages. This version corrects an error in the previous version (where we made a false claim at the end of the proof of Theorem 2), without changing the overall structure of the proo

Computing the Girth of a Planar Graph in Linear Time

The girth of a graph is the minimum weight of all simple cycles of the graph. We study the problem of determining the girth of an n-node unweighted undirected planar graph. The first non-trivial algorithm for the problem, given by Djidjev, runs in O(n^{5/4} log n) time. Chalermsook, Fakcharoenphol, and Nanongkai reduced the running time to O(n log^2 n). Weimann and Yuster further reduced the running time to O(n log n). In this paper, we solve the problem in O(n) time.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures, accepted to SIAM Journal on Computin

Generic singular configurations of linkages

We study the topological and differentiable singularities of the configuration space C(\Gamma) of a mechanical linkage \Gamma in d-dimensional Euclidean space, defining an inductive sufficient condition to determine when a configuration is singular. We show that this condition holds for generic singularities, provide a mechanical interpretation, and give an example of a type of mechanism for which this criterion identifies all singularities