1,961 research outputs found
Independence, odd girth, and average degree
We prove several best-possible lower bounds in terms of the order and the average degree for the independence number of graphs which are connected and/or satisfy some odd girth condition. Our main result is the extension of a lower bound for the independence number of triangle-free graphs of maximum degree at most due to Heckman and Thomas [A New Proof of the Independence Ratio of Triangle-Free Cubic Graphs, {\it Discrete Math.} {\bf 233} (2001), 233-237] to arbitrary triangle-free graphs. For connected triangle-free graphs of order and size , our result implies the existence of an independent set of order at least
Eigenvalue interlacing and weight parameters of graphs
Eigenvalue interlacing is a versatile technique for deriving results in
algebraic combinatorics. In particular, it has been successfully used for
proving a number of results about the relation between the (adjacency matrix or
Laplacian) spectrum of a graph and some of its properties. For instance, some
characterizations of regular partitions, and bounds for some parameters, such
as the independence and chromatic numbers, the diameter, the bandwidth, etc.,
have been obtained. For each parameter of a graph involving the cardinality of
some vertex sets, we can define its corresponding weight parameter by giving
some "weights" (that is, the entries of the positive eigenvector) to the
vertices and replacing cardinalities by square norms. The key point is that
such weights "regularize" the graph, and hence allow us to define a kind of
regular partition, called "pseudo-regular," intended for general graphs. Here
we show how to use interlacing for proving results about some weight parameters
and pseudo-regular partitions of a graph. For instance, generalizing a
well-known result of Lov\'asz, it is shown that the weight Shannon capacity
of a connected graph \G, with vertices and (adjacency matrix)
eigenvalues , satisfies \Theta\le
\Theta^* \le \frac{\|\vecnu\|^2}{1-\frac{\lambda_1}{\lambda_n}} where
is the (standard) Shannon capacity and \vecnu is the positive
eigenvector normalized to have smallest entry 1. In the special case of regular
graphs, the results obtained have some interesting corollaries, such as an
upper bound for some of the multiplicities of the eigenvalues of a
distance-regular graph. Finally, some results involving the Laplacian spectrum
are derived. spectrum are derived
Independence ratio and random eigenvectors in transitive graphs
A theorem of Hoffman gives an upper bound on the independence ratio of
regular graphs in terms of the minimum of the spectrum of the
adjacency matrix. To complement this result we use random eigenvectors to gain
lower bounds in the vertex-transitive case. For example, we prove that the
independence ratio of a -regular transitive graph is at least
The same bound holds for infinite transitive graphs: we
construct factor of i.i.d. independent sets for which the probability that any
given vertex is in the set is at least . We also show that the set of
the distributions of factor of i.i.d. processes is not closed w.r.t. the weak
topology provided that the spectrum of the graph is uncountable.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/14-AOP952 in the Annals of
Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aop/) by the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
The critical window for the classical Ramsey-Tur\'an problem
The first application of Szemer\'edi's powerful regularity method was the
following celebrated Ramsey-Tur\'an result proved by Szemer\'edi in 1972: any
K_4-free graph on N vertices with independence number o(N) has at most (1/8 +
o(1)) N^2 edges. Four years later, Bollob\'as and Erd\H{o}s gave a surprising
geometric construction, utilizing the isoperimetric inequality for the high
dimensional sphere, of a K_4-free graph on N vertices with independence number
o(N) and (1/8 - o(1)) N^2 edges. Starting with Bollob\'as and Erd\H{o}s in
1976, several problems have been asked on estimating the minimum possible
independence number in the critical window, when the number of edges is about
N^2 / 8. These problems have received considerable attention and remained one
of the main open problems in this area. In this paper, we give nearly
best-possible bounds, solving the various open problems concerning this
critical window.Comment: 34 page
Eccentric connectivity index
The eccentric connectivity index is a novel distance--based molecular
structure descriptor that was recently used for mathematical modeling of
biological activities of diverse nature. It is defined as \,, where and
denote the vertex degree and eccentricity of \,, respectively. We survey
some mathematical properties of this index and furthermore support the use of
eccentric connectivity index as topological structure descriptor. We present
the extremal trees and unicyclic graphs with maximum and minimum eccentric
connectivity index subject to the certain graph constraints. Sharp lower and
asymptotic upper bound for all graphs are given and various connections with
other important graph invariants are established. In addition, we present
explicit formulae for the values of eccentric connectivity index for several
families of composite graphs and designed a linear algorithm for calculating
the eccentric connectivity index of trees. Some open problems and related
indices for further study are also listed.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figure
On First-Order Definable Colorings
We address the problem of characterizing -coloring problems that are
first-order definable on a fixed class of relational structures. In this
context, we give several characterizations of a homomorphism dualities arising
in a class of structure
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