On some intriguing problems in Hamiltonian graph theory -- A survey

We survey results and open problems in Hamiltonian graph theory centred around three themes: regular graphs, $t$-tough graphs, and claw-free graphs

A Study on Edge-Set Graphs of Certain Graphs

Let $G(V, E)$ be a simple connected graph, with $|E| = \epsilon.$ In this paper, we define an edge-set graph $\mathcal G_G$ constructed from the graph $G$ such that any vertex $v_{s,i}$ of $\mathcal G_G$ corresponds to the $i$-th $s$-element subset of $E(G)$ and any two vertices $v_{s,i}, v_{k,m}$ of $\mathcal G_G$ are adjacent if and only if there is at least one edge in the edge-subset corresponding to $v_{s,i}$ which is adjacent to at least one edge in the edge-subset corresponding to $v_{k,m}$ where $s,k$ are positive integers. It can be noted that the edge-set graph $\mathcal G_G$ of a graph $G$ id dependent on both the structure of $G$ as well as the number of edges $\epsilon.$ We also discuss the characteristics and properties of the edge-set graphs corresponding to certain standard graphs.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure

Upper bounds on the k-forcing number of a graph

Given a simple undirected graph $G$ and a positive integer $k$, the $k$-forcing number of $G$, denoted $F_k(G)$, is the minimum number of vertices that need to be initially colored so that all vertices eventually become colored during the discrete dynamical process described by the following rule. Starting from an initial set of colored vertices and stopping when all vertices are colored: if a colored vertex has at most $k$ non-colored neighbors, then each of its non-colored neighbors becomes colored. When $k=1$, this is equivalent to the zero forcing number, usually denoted with $Z(G)$, a recently introduced invariant that gives an upper bound on the maximum nullity of a graph. In this paper, we give several upper bounds on the $k$-forcing number. Notable among these, we show that if $G$ is a graph with order $n \ge 2$ and maximum degree $\Delta \ge k$, then $F_k(G) \le \frac{(\Delta-k+1)n}{\Delta - k + 1 +\min{\{\delta,k\}}}$. This simplifies to, for the zero forcing number case of $k=1$, $Z(G)=F_1(G) \le \frac{\Delta n}{\Delta+1}$. Moreover, when $\Delta \ge 2$ and the graph is $k$-connected, we prove that $F_k(G) \leq \frac{(\Delta-2)n+2}{\Delta+k-2}$, which is an improvement when $k\leq 2$, and specializes to, for the zero forcing number case, $Z(G)= F_1(G) \le \frac{(\Delta -2)n+2}{\Delta -1}$. These results resolve a problem posed by Meyer about regular bipartite circulant graphs. Finally, we present a relationship between the $k$-forcing number and the connected $k$-domination number. As a corollary, we find that the sum of the zero forcing number and connected domination number is at most the order for connected graphs.Comment: 15 pages, 0 figure