Small cycle cover, group coloring with related problems

Bondy conjectured that if G is a simple 2-connected graph with n ≥ 3 vertices, then the edges of G can be covered by at most 2n-33 cycles. In Chapter 2, a result on small cycle cover is obtained and we also show that the result is as best as possible.;Thomassen conjectured that every 4-connected line graph is hamiltonian. In Chapters 3 and 4, we apply Catlin\u27s reduction method to study cycles in line graphs. Results about hamiltonian connectivity of line graphs and 3-edge-connected graphs are obtained. Several former results are extended.;Jaeger, Linial, Payan and Tarsi introduced group coloring in 1992 and proved that the group chromatic number for every planar graph is at most 6. It is shown that the bound 6 can be decreased to 5. Jaeger, Linial, Payan and Tarsi also proved that the group chromatic number for every planar graph with girth at least 4 is at most 4. Chapters 5 and 6 are devoted to the study of group coloring of graphs.;The concept of list coloring, choosability and choice number was introduced by Erdos, Rubin and Taylor in 1979 and Vizing in 1976. Alon and Tarsi proved that every bipartite planar graph is 3-choosable. Thomassen showed that every planar graph is 5-choosable and that every planar graph with girth at least 5 is 3-choosable. In Chapter 7, results on list coloring are obtained, extending a former result of Thomassen

Group Connectivity of Graphs

Tutte introduced the theory of nowhere-zero flows and showed that a plane graph G has a face k-coloring if and only if G has a nowhere-zero A-flow, for any Abelian group A with |A| ≥ k. In 1992 Jaeger et al. [16] extended nowhere-zero flows to group connectivity of graphs: given an orientation D of a graph G, if for any b: V (G) A with sumv∈ V(G ) b(v) = 0, there always exists a map ƒ: E(G) A - {lcub}0{rcub}, such that at each v ∈ V(G), e=vw isdirectedfrom vtow fe- e=uvi sdirectedfrom utov fe=b v in A, then G is A-connected. For a 2-edge-connected graph G, define Lambda g(G) = min{lcub}k: for any Abelian group A with |A| ≥ k, G is A-connected{rcub}.;Let G1 ⊗ G2 and G1 xG2 denote the strong and Cartesian product of two connected nontrivial graphs G1 and G2. We prove that Lambdag(G 1 ⊗ G2) ≤ 4, where equality holds if and only if both G1 and G 2 are trees and min{lcub}|V (G1)|, |V (G2)|{rcub}=2; Lambda g(G1 ⊗ G 2) ≤ 5, where equality holds if and only if both G 1 and G2 are trees and either G 1 ≅ K1, m and G2 ≅ K 1,n, for n, m ≥ 2 or min{lcub}|V (G1)|, | V (G2)|{rcub}=2. A similar result for the lexicographical product graphs is also obtained.;Let P denote a path in G, let beta G(P) be the minimum length of a circuit containing P, and let betai(G) be the maximum of betaG(P) over paths of length i in G. We show that Lambda g(G) ≤ betai( G) + 1 for any integer i \u3e 0 and for any 2-connected graph G. Partial solutions toward determining the graphs for which equality holds were obtained by Fan et al. in [J. Comb. Theory, Ser. B, 98(6) (2008), 1325-1336], among others. We completely determine all graphs G with Lambda g(G) = beta2(G) + 1.;Let Z3 denote the cyclic group of order 3. In [16], Jaeger et al. conjectured that every 5-edge-connected graph is Z3 -connected. We proved the following: (i) Every 5-edge-connected graph is Z3 -connected if and only if every 5-edge-connected line graph is Z3 -connected. (ii) Every 6-edge-connected triangular line graph is Z3 -connected. (iii) Every 7-edge-connected triangular claw-free graph is Z3 -connected. In particular, every 6-edge-connected triangular line graph and every 7-edge-connected triangular claw-free graph have a nowhere-zero 3-flow

Group Colorability and Hamiltonian Properties of Graphs

The research of my dissertation was motivated by the conjecture of Thomassen that every 4-connected line graph is hamiltonian and by the conjecture of Matthews and Sumner that every 4-connected claw-free graph is hamiltonian. Towards the hamiltonian line graph problem, we proved that every 3-edge-connected, essentially 4-edge-connected graph G has a spanning eulerian subgraph, if for every pair of adjacent vertices u and v, dG(u) + dG(v) ≥ 9. A straight forward corollary is that every 4-connected, essentially 6-connected line graph with minimum degree at least 7 is hamiltonian.;We also investigate graphs G such that the line graph L(G) is hamiltonian connected when L( G) is 4-connected. Ryjacek and Vrana recently further conjectured that every 4-connected line graph is hamiltonian-connected. In 2001, Kriesell proved that every 4-connected line graph of a claw free graph is hamiltonian connected. Recently, Lai et al showed that every 4-connected line graph of a quasi claw free graph is hamiltonian connected, and that every 4-connected line graph of an almost claw free graph is hamiltonian connected. In 2009, Broersma and Vumer discovered the P3-dominating (P3D) graphs as a superfamily that properly contains all quasi claw free graphs, and in particular, all claw-free graphs. Here we prove that every 4-connected line graph of a P3D graph is hamiltonian connected, which extends several former results in this area.;R. Gould [15] asked what natural graph properties of G and H are sufficient to imply that the product of G and H is hamiltonian. We first investigate the sufficient and necessary conditions for G x H being hamiltonian or traceable when G is a hamiltonian graph and H is a tree. Then we further investigate sufficient and necessary conditions for G x H being hamiltonian connected, or edge-pancyclic, or pan-connected.;The problem of group colorings of graphs is also investigated in this dissertation. Group coloring was first introduced by Jeager et al. [21]. They introduced a concept of group connectivity as a generalization of nowhere-zero flows. They also introduced group coloring as a dual concept to group connectivity. Prior research on group chromatic number was restricted to simple graphs, and considered only Abelian groups in the definition of chi g(G). The behavior of group coloring for multigraphs is different to that of simple graphs. Thus we extend the definition of group coloring by considering general groups (both Abelian groups and non-Abelian groups), and investigate the properties of chig for multigraphs by proving an analogue to Brooks\u27 Theorem