Identifying codes of corona product graphs

For a vertex $x$ of a graph $G$, let $N_G[x]$ be the set of $x$ with all of its neighbors in $G$. A set $C$ of vertices is an {\em identifying code} of $G$ if the sets $N_G[x]\cap C$ are nonempty and distinct for all vertices $x$. If $G$ admits an identifying code, we say that $G$ is identifiable and denote by $\gamma^{ID}(G)$ the minimum cardinality of an identifying code of $G$. In this paper, we study the identifying code of the corona product $H\odot G$ of graphs $H$ and $G$. We first give a necessary and sufficient condition for the identifiable corona product $H\odot G$, and then express $\gamma^{ID}(H\odot G)$ in terms of $\gamma^{ID}(G)$ and the (total) domination number of $H$. Finally, we compute $\gamma^{ID}(H\odot G)$ for some special graphs $G$

Shellable graphs and sequentially Cohen-Macaulay bipartite graphs

Associated to a simple undirected graph G is a simplicial complex whose faces correspond to the independent sets of G. We call a graph G shellable if this simplicial complex is a shellable simplicial complex in the non-pure sense of Bjorner-Wachs. We are then interested in determining what families of graphs have the property that G is shellable. We show that all chordal graphs are shellable. Furthermore, we classify all the shellable bipartite graphs; they are precisely the sequentially Cohen-Macaulay bipartite graphs. We also give an recursive procedure to verify if a bipartite graph is shellable. Because shellable implies that the associated Stanley-Reisner ring is sequentially Cohen-Macaulay, our results complement and extend recent work on the problem of determining when the edge ideal of a graph is (sequentially) Cohen-Macaulay. We also give a new proof for a result of Faridi on the sequentially Cohen-Macaulayness of simplicial forests.Comment: 16 pages; more detail added to some proofs; Corollary 2.10 was been clarified; the beginning of Section 4 has been rewritten; references updated; to appear in J. Combin. Theory, Ser.

The arithmetical rank of the edge ideals of graphs with pairwise disjoint cycles

We prove that, for the edge ideal of a graph whose cycles are pairwise vertex-disjoint, the arithmetical rank is bounded above by the sum of the number of cycles and the maximum height of its associated primes