Graph Theory

This is the report on an Oberwolfach conference on graph theory, held 16-22 January 2005. There were three main components to the event: 5-minute presentations, lectures, and workshops. All participants were asked to give a 5-minute presentation of their interests on the first day, and subsequent days were divided into lectures and workshops. The latter ranged over many different topics, but the main three topics were: infinite graphs, topological methods and their use to prove theorems in graph theory, and Rota’s conjecture for matroids

Approximately Counting Embeddings into Random Graphs

Let H be a graph, and let C_H(G) be the number of (subgraph isomorphic) copies of H contained in a graph G. We investigate the fundamental problem of estimating C_H(G). Previous results cover only a few specific instances of this general problem, for example, the case when H has degree at most one (monomer-dimer problem). In this paper, we present the first general subcase of the subgraph isomorphism counting problem which is almost always efficiently approximable. The results rely on a new graph decomposition technique. Informally, the decomposition is a labeling of the vertices such that every edge is between vertices with different labels and for every vertex all neighbors with a higher label have identical labels. The labeling implicitly generates a sequence of bipartite graphs which permits us to break the problem of counting embeddings of large subgraphs into that of counting embeddings of small subgraphs. Using this method, we present a simple randomized algorithm for the counting problem. For all decomposable graphs H and all graphs G, the algorithm is an unbiased estimator. Furthermore, for all graphs H having a decomposition where each of the bipartite graphs generated is small and almost all graphs G, the algorithm is a fully polynomial randomized approximation scheme. We show that the graph classes of H for which we obtain a fully polynomial randomized approximation scheme for almost all G includes graphs of degree at most two, bounded-degree forests, bounded-length grid graphs, subdivision of bounded-degree graphs, and major subclasses of outerplanar graphs, series-parallel graphs and planar graphs, whereas unbounded-length grid graphs are excluded.Comment: Earlier version appeared in Random 2008. Fixed an typo in Definition 3.

On the decomposition threshold of a given graph

We study the $F$-decomposition threshold $\delta_F$ for a given graph $F$. Here an $F$-decomposition of a graph $G$ is a collection of edge-disjoint copies of $F$ in $G$ which together cover every edge of $G$. (Such an $F$-decomposition can only exist if $G$ is $F$-divisible, i.e. if $e(F)\mid e(G)$ and each vertex degree of $G$ can be expressed as a linear combination of the vertex degrees of $F$.) The $F$-decomposition threshold $\delta_F$ is the smallest value ensuring that an $F$-divisible graph $G$ on $n$ vertices with $\delta(G)\ge(\delta_F+o(1))n$ has an $F$-decomposition. Our main results imply the following for a given graph $F$, where $\delta_F^\ast$ is the fractional version of $\delta_F$ and $\chi:=\chi(F)$: (i) $\delta_F\le \max\{\delta_F^\ast,1-1/(\chi+1)\}$; (ii) if $\chi\ge 5$, then $\delta_F\in\{\delta_F^{\ast},1-1/\chi,1-1/(\chi+1)\}$; (iii) we determine $\delta_F$ if $F$ is bipartite. In particular, (i) implies that $\delta_{K_r}=\delta^\ast_{K_r}$. Our proof involves further developments of the recent `iterative' absorbing approach.Comment: Final version, to appear in the Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series

Graph Theory

Highlights of this workshop on structural graph theory included new developments on graph and matroid minors, continuous structures arising as limits of finite graphs, and new approaches to higher graph connectivity via tree structures

Combinatorics

This is the report on the Oberwolfach workshop on Combinatorics, held 1–7 January 2006. Combinatorics is a branch of mathematics studying families of mainly, but not exclusively, finite or countable structures – discrete objects. The discrete objects considered in the workshop were graphs, set systems, discrete geometries, and matrices. The programme consisted of 15 invited lectures, 18 contributed talks, and a problem session focusing on recent developments in graph theory, coding theory, discrete geometry, extremal combinatorics, Ramsey theory, theoretical computer science, and probabilistic combinatorics

Complete Acyclic Colorings

We study two parameters that arise from the dichromatic number and the vertex-arboricity in the same way that the achromatic number comes from the chromatic number. The adichromatic number of a digraph is the largest number of colors its vertices can be colored with such that every color induces an acyclic subdigraph but merging any two colors yields a monochromatic directed cycle. Similarly, the a-vertex arboricity of an undirected graph is the largest number of colors that can be used such that every color induces a forest but merging any two yields a monochromatic cycle. We study the relation between these parameters and their behavior with respect to other classical parameters such as degeneracy and most importantly feedback vertex sets.Comment: 17 pages, no figure