Hamiltonian properties of polyhedra with few 3-cuts : a survey

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Modularity of regular and treelike graphs

Clustering algorithms for large networks typically use modularity values to test which partitions of the vertex set better represent structure in the data. The modularity of a graph is the maximum modularity of a partition. We consider the modularity of two kinds of graphs. For $r$-regular graphs with a given number of vertices, we investigate the minimum possible modularity, the typical modularity, and the maximum possible modularity. In particular, we see that for random cubic graphs the modularity is usually in the interval $(0.666, 0.804)$, and for random $r$-regular graphs with large $r$ it usually is of order $1/\sqrt{r}$. These results help to establish baselines for statistical tests on regular graphs. The modularity of cycles and low degree trees is known to be close to 1: we extend these results to `treelike' graphs, where the product of treewidth and maximum degree is much less than the number of edges. This yields for example the (deterministic) lower bound $0.666$ mentioned above on the modularity of random cubic graphs.Comment: 25 page

Graphs with few Hamiltonian Cycles

We describe an algorithm for the exhaustive generation of non-isomorphic graphs with a given number $k \ge 0$ of hamiltonian cycles, which is especially efficient for small $k$. Our main findings, combining applications of this algorithm and existing algorithms with new theoretical results, revolve around graphs containing exactly one hamiltonian cycle (1H) or exactly three hamiltonian cycles (3H). Motivated by a classic result of Smith and recent work of Royle, we show that there exist nearly cubic 1H graphs of order $n$ iff $n \ge 18$ is even. This gives the strongest form of a theorem of Entringer and Swart, and sheds light on a question of Fleischner originally settled by Seamone. We prove equivalent formulations of the conjecture of Bondy and Jackson that every planar 1H graph contains two vertices of degree 2, verify it up to order 16, and show that its toric analogue does not hold. We treat Thomassen's conjecture that every hamiltonian graph of minimum degree at least $3$ contains an edge such that both its removal and its contraction yield hamiltonian graphs. We also verify up to order 21 the conjecture of Sheehan that there is no 4-regular 1H graph. Extending work of Schwenk, we describe all orders for which cubic 3H triangle-free graphs exist. We verify up to order $48$ Cantoni's conjecture that every planar cubic 3H graph contains a triangle, and show that there exist infinitely many planar cyclically 4-edge-connected cubic graphs with exactly four hamiltonian cycles, thereby answering a question of Chia and Thomassen. Finally, complementing work of Sheehan on 1H graphs of maximum size, we determine the maximum size of graphs containing exactly one hamiltonian path and give, for every order $n$, the exact number of such graphs on $n$ vertices and of maximum size.Comment: 29 pages; to appear in Mathematics of Computatio

Graph theory in America 1876-1950

This narrative is a history of the contributions made to graph theory in the United States of America by American mathematicians and others who supported the growth of scholarship in that country, between the years 1876 and 1950. The beginning of this period coincided with the opening of the first research university in the United States of America, The Johns Hopkins University (although undergraduates were also taught), providing the facilities and impetus for the development of new ideas. The hiring, from England, of one of the foremost mathematicians of the time provided the necessary motivation for research and development for a new generation of American scholars. In addition, it was at this time that home-grown research mathematicians were first coming to prominence. At the beginning of the twentieth century European interest in graph theory, and to some extent the four-colour problem, began to wane. Over three decades, American mathematicians took up this field of study - notably, Oswald Veblen, George Birkhoff, Philip Franklin, and Hassler Whitney. It is necessary to stress that these four mathematicians and all the other scholars mentioned in this history were not just graph theorists but worked in many other disciplines. Indeed, they not only made significant contributions to diverse fields but, in some cases, they created those fields themselves and set the standards for others to follow. Moreover, whilst they made considerable contributions to graph theory in general, two of them developed important ideas in connection with the four-colour problem. Grounded in a paper by Alfred Bray Kempe that was notorious for its fallacious 'proof' of the four-colour theorem, these ideas were the concepts of an unavoidable set and a reducible configuration. To place the story of these scholars within the history of mathematics, America, and graph theory, brief accounts are presented of the early years of graph theory, the early years of mathematics and graph theory in the USA, and the effects of the founding of the first institute for postgraduate study in America. Additionally, information has been included on other influences by such global events as the two world wars, the depression, the influx of European scholars into the United States of America, mainly during the 1930s, and the parallel development of graph theory in Europe. Until the end of the nineteenth century, graph theory had been almost entirely the prerogative of European mathematicians. Perhaps the first work in graph theory carried out in America was by Charles Sanders Peirce, arguably America's greatest logician and philosopher at the time. In the 1860s, he studied the four-colour conjecture and claimed to have written at least two papers on the subject during that decade, but unfortunately neither of these has survived. William Edward Story entered the field in 1879, with unfortunate consequences, but it was not until 1897 that an American mathematician presented a lecture on the subject, albeit only to have the paper disappear. Paul Wernicke presented a lecture on the four-colour problem to the American Mathematician Society, but again the paper has not survived. However, his 1904 paper has survived and added to the story of graph theory, and particularly the four-colour conjecture. The year 1912 saw the real beginning of American graph theory with Veblen and Birkhoff publishing major contributions to the subject. It was around this time that European mathematicians appeared to lose interest in graph theory. In the period 1912 to 1950 much of the progress made in the subject was from America and by 1950 not only had the United States of America become the foremost country for mathematics, it was the leading centre for graph theory

The topology of fullerenes

Fullerenes are carbon molecules that form polyhedral cages. Their bond structures are exactly the planar cubic graphs that have only pentagon and hexagon faces. Strikingly, a number of chemical properties of a fullerene can be derived from its graph structure. A rich mathematics of cubic planar graphs and fullerene graphs has grown since they were studied by Goldberg, Coxeter, and others in the early 20th century, and many mathematical properties of fullerenes have found simple and beautiful solutions. Yet many interesting chemical and mathematical problems in the field remain open. In this paper, we present a general overview of recent topological and graph theoretical developments in fullerene research over the past two decades, describing both solved and open problems. WIREs Comput Mol Sci 2015, 5:96–145. doi: 10.1002/wcms.1207 Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website

Rooted structures in graphs: a project on Hadwiger's conjecture, rooted minors, and Tutte cycles

Hadwigers Vermutung ist eine der anspruchsvollsten Vermutungen für Graphentheoretiker und bietet eine weitreichende Verallgemeinerung des Vierfarbensatzes. Ausgehend von dieser offenen Frage der strukturellen Graphentheorie werden gewurzelte Strukturen in Graphen diskutiert. Eine Transversale einer Partition ist definiert als eine Menge, welche genau ein Element aus jeder Menge der Partition enthält und sonst nichts. Für einen Graphen G und eine Teilmenge T seiner Knotenmenge ist ein gewurzelter Minor von G ein Minor, der T als Transversale seiner Taschen enthält. Sei T eine Transversale einer Färbung eines Graphen, sodass es ein System von kanten-disjunkten Wegen zwischen allen Knoten aus T gibt; dann stellt sich die Frage, ob es möglich ist, die Existenz eines vollständigen, in T gewurzelten Minors zu gewährleisten. Diese Frage ist eng mit Hadwigers Vermutung verwoben: Eine positive Antwort würde Hadwigers Vermutung für eindeutig färbbare Graphen bestätigen. In dieser Arbeit wird ebendiese Fragestellung untersucht sowie weitere Konzepte vorgestellt, welche bekannte Ideen der strukturellen Graphentheorie um eine Verwurzelung erweitern. Beispielsweise wird diskutiert, inwiefern hoch zusammenhängende Teilmengen der Knotenmenge einen hoch zusammenhängenden, gewurzelten Minor erzwingen. Zudem werden verschiedene Ideen von Hamiltonizität in planaren und nicht-planaren Graphen behandelt.Hadwiger's Conjecture is one of the most tantalising conjectures for graph theorists and offers a far-reaching generalisation of the Four-Colour-Theorem. Based on this major issue in structural graph theory, this thesis explores rooted structures in graphs. A transversal of a partition is a set which contains exactly one element from each member of the partition and nothing else. Given a graph G and a subset T of its vertex set, a rooted minor of G is a minor such that T is a transversal of its branch set. Assume that a graph has a transversal T of one of its colourings such that there is a system of edge-disjoint paths between all vertices from T; it comes natural to ask whether such graphs contain a minor rooted at T. This question of containment is strongly related to Hadwiger's Conjecture; indeed, a positive answer would prove Hadwiger's Conjecture for uniquely colourable graphs. This thesis studies the aforementioned question and besides, presents several other concepts of attaching rooted relatedness to ideas in structural graph theory. For instance, whether a highly connected subset of the vertex set forces a highly connected rooted minor. Moreover, several ideas of Hamiltonicity in planar and non-planar graphs are discussed