On complexity of special maximum matchings constructing

For bipartite graphs the NP-completeness is proved for the problem of existence of maximum matching which removal leads to a graph with given lower(upper)bound for the cardinality of its maximum matching.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures. Discrete Mathematics, to appea

On upper bounds for parameters related to construction of special maximum matchings

For a graph $G$ let $L(G)$ and $l(G)$ denote the size of the largest and smallest maximum matching of a graph obtained from $G$ by removing a maximum matching of $G$. We show that $L(G)\leq 2l(G),$ and $L(G)\leq (3/2)l(G)$ provided that $G$ contains a perfect matching. We also characterize the class of graphs for which $L(G)=2l(G)$. Our characterization implies the existence of a polynomial algorithm for testing the property $L(G)=2l(G)$. Finally we show that it is $NP$-complete to test whether a graph $G$ containing a perfect matching satisfies $L(G)=(3/2)l(G)$.Comment: 11 pages, no figure

Supermodularity in Unweighted Graph Optimization I: Branchings and Matchings

The main result of this paper is motivated by the following two apparently unrelated graph optimization problems: (A) As an extension of Edmonds' disjoint branchings theorem, characterize digraphs comprising k disjoint branchings B-i each having a specified number mu(i) of arcs. (B) As an extension of Ryser's maximum term rank formula, determine the largest possible matching number of simple bipartite graphs complying with degree-constraints. The solutions to these problems and to their generalizations will be obtained from a new min-max theorem on covering a supermodular function by a simple degree-constrained bipartite graph. A specific feature of the result is that its minimum cost extension is already NP-hard. Therefore classic polyhedral tools themselves definitely cannot be sufficient for solving the problem, even though they make some good service in our approach