203 research outputs found
Sparse Kneser graphs are Hamiltonian
For integers and , the Kneser graph is the
graph whose vertices are the -element subsets of and whose
edges connect pairs of subsets that are disjoint. The Kneser graphs of the form
are also known as the odd graphs. We settle an old problem due to
Meredith, Lloyd, and Biggs from the 1970s, proving that for every ,
the odd graph has a Hamilton cycle. This and a known conditional
result due to Johnson imply that all Kneser graphs of the form
with and have a Hamilton cycle. We also prove that
has at least distinct Hamilton cycles for .
Our proofs are based on a reduction of the Hamiltonicity problem in the odd
graph to the problem of finding a spanning tree in a suitably defined
hypergraph on Dyck words
Vertex covering with monochromatic pieces of few colours
In 1995, Erd\H{o}s and Gy\'arf\'as proved that in every -colouring of the
edges of , there is a vertex cover by monochromatic paths of
the same colour, which is optimal up to a constant factor. The main goal of
this paper is to study the natural multi-colour generalization of this problem:
given two positive integers , what is the smallest number
such that in every colouring of the edges of with
colours, there exists a vertex cover of by
monochromatic paths using altogether at most different colours? For fixed
integers and as , we prove that , where is the chromatic number of
the Kneser gr aph . More generally, if one replaces by
an arbitrary -vertex graph with fixed independence number , then we
have , where this time around is the
chromatic number of the Kneser hypergraph . This
result is tight in the sense that there exist graphs with independence number
for which . This is in sharp
contrast to the case , where it follows from a result of S\'ark\"ozy
(2012) that depends only on and , but not on
the number of vertices. We obtain similar results for the situation where
instead of using paths, one wants to cover a graph with bounded independence
number by monochromatic cycles, or a complete graph by monochromatic
-regular graphs
Sparse Kneser graphs are Hamiltonian
For integers k≥1 and n≥2k+1, the Kneser graph K(n,k) is the graph whose vertices are the k-element subsets of {1,…,n} and whose edges connect pairs of subsets that are disjoint. The Kneser graphs of the form K(2k+1,k) are also known as the odd graphs. We settle an old problem due to Meredith, Lloyd, and Biggs from the 1970s, proving that for every k≥3, the odd graph K(2k+1,k) has a Hamilton cycle. This and a known conditional result due to Johnson imply that all Kneser graphs of the form K(2k+2a,k) with k≥3 and a≥0 have a Hamilton cycle. We also prove that K(2k+1,k) has at least 22k−6 distinct Hamilton cycles for k≥6. Our proofs are based on a reduction of the Hamiltonicity problem in the odd graph to the problem of finding a spanning tree in a suitably defined hypergraph on Dyck words
Bipartite Kneser graphs are Hamiltonian
For integers and the Kneser graph has as vertices all -element subsets of and an edge between any two vertices (=sets) that are disjoint. The bipartite Kneser graph has as vertices all -element and -element subsets of and an edge between any two vertices where one is a subset of the other. It has long been conjectured that all Kneser graphs and bipartite Kneser graphs except the Petersen graph have a Hamilton cycle. The main contribution of this paper is proving this conjecture for bipartite Kneser graphs . We also establish the existence of cycles that visit almost all vertices in Kneser graphs when , generalizing and improving upon previous results on this problem
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