Even Orientations and Pfaffian graphs

We give a characterization of Pfaffian graphs in terms of even orientations, extending the characterization of near bipartite non--pfaffian graphs by Fischer and Little \cite{FL}. Our graph theoretical characterization is equivalent to the one proved by Little in \cite{L73} (cf. \cite{LR}) using linear algebra arguments

Permanents, Pfaffian orientations, and even directed circuits

Given a 0-1 square matrix A, when can some of the 1's be changed to -1's in such a way that the permanent of A equals the determinant of the modified matrix? When does a real square matrix have the property that every real matrix with the same sign pattern (that is, the corresponding entries either have the same sign or are both zero) is nonsingular? When is a hypergraph with n vertices and n hyperedges minimally nonbipartite? When does a bipartite graph have a "Pfaffian orientation"? Given a digraph, does it have no directed circuit of even length? Given a digraph, does it have a subdivision with no even directed circuit? It is known that all of the above problems are equivalent. We prove a structural characterization of the feasible instances, which implies a polynomial-time algorithm to solve all of the above problems. The structural characterization says, roughly speaking, that a bipartite graph has a Pfaffian orientation if and only if it can be obtained by piecing together (in a specified way) planar bipartite graphs and one sporadic nonplanar bipartite graph.Comment: 47 pages, published versio

Pfaffian orientation and enumeration of perfect matchings for some Cartesian products of graphs

The importance of Pfaffian orientations stems from the fact that if a graph G is Pfaffian, then the number of perfect matchings of G (as well as other related problems) can be computed in polynomial time. Although there are many equivalent conditions for the existence of a Pfaffian orientation of a graph, this property is not well-characterized. The problem is that no polynomial algorithm is known for checking whether or not a given orientation of a graph is Pfaffian. Similarly, we do not know whether this property of an undirected graph that it has a Pfaffian orientation is in NP. It is well known that the enumeration problem of perfect matchings for general graphs is NP-hard. L. Lovasz pointed out that it makes sense not only to seek good upper and lower bounds of the number of perfect matchings for general graphs, but also to seek special classes for which the problem can be solved exactly. For a simple graph G and a cycle C(n) with n vertices (or a path P(n) with n vertices), we define C(n) (or P(n)) x G as the Cartesian product of graphs C(n) (or P(n)) and G. In the present paper, we construct Pfaffian orientations of graphs C(4) x G, P(4) x G and P(3) x G, where G is a non bipartite graph with a unique cycle, and obtain the explicit formulas in terms of eigenvalues of the skew adjacency matrix of (G) over right arrow to enumerate their perfect matchings by Pfaffian approach, where (G) over right arrow is an arbitrary orientation of G

Enumeration of perfect matchings of a type of quadratic lattice on the torus

NSFC [10831001]A quadrilateral cylinder of length m and breadth n is the Cartesian product of a m-cycle(with m vertices) and a n-path(with n vertices). Write the vertices of the two cycles on the boundary of the quadrilateral cylinder as x(1), x(2), ... , x(m) and y(1), y(2), ... , y(m), respectively, where x(i) corresponds to y(i) (i = 1, 2, ..., m). We denote by Q(m,n,r), the graph obtained from quadrilateral cylinder of length m and breadth n by adding edges x(i)y(i+r) (r is a integer, 0 <= r < m and i + r is modulo m). Kasteleyn had derived explicit expressions of the number of perfect matchings for Q(m,n,0) [P.W. Kasteleyn, The statistics of dimers on a lattice I: The number of dimer arrangements on a quadratic lattice, Physica 27(1961), 1209-1225]. In this paper, we generalize the result of Kasteleyn, and obtain expressions of the number of perfect matchings for Q(m,n,r) by enumerating Pfaffians

Combinatorial approaches to Hopf bifurcations in systems of interacting elements

We describe combinatorial approaches to the question of whether families of real matrices admit pairs of nonreal eigenvalues passing through the imaginary axis. When the matrices arise as Jacobian matrices in the study of dynamical systems, these conditions provide necessary conditions for Hopf bifurcations to occur in parameterised families of such systems. The techniques depend on the spectral properties of additive compound matrices: in particular, we associate with a product of matrices a signed, labelled digraph termed a DSR^[2] graph, which encodes information about the second additive compound of this product. A condition on the cycle structure of this digraph is shown to rule out the possibility of nonreal eigenvalues with positive real part. The techniques developed are applied to systems of interacting elements termed "interaction networks", of which networks of chemical reactions are a special case.Comment: A number of minor errors and typos corrected, and some results slightly improve

Nash equilibria, gale strings, and perfect matchings

This thesis concerns the problem 2-NASH of finding a Nash equilibrium of a bimatrix game, for the special class of so-called “hard-to-solve” bimatrix games. The term “hardto-solve” relates to the exponential running time of the famous and often used Lemke– Howson algorithm for this class of games. The games are constructed with the help of dual cyclic polytopes, where the algorithm can be expressed combinatorially via labeled bitstrings defined by the “Gale evenness condition” that characterise the vertices of these polytopes. We define the combinatorial problem “Another completely labeled Gale string” whose solutions define the Nash equilibria of any game defined by cyclic polytopes, including the games where the Lemke–Howson algorithm takes exponential time. We show that “Another completely labeled Gale string” is solvable in polynomial time by a reduction to the “Perfect matching” problem in Euler graphs. We adapt the Lemke–Howson algorithm to pivot from one perfect matching to another and show that again for a certain class of graphs this leads to exponential behaviour. Furthermore, we prove that completely labeled Gale strings and perfect matchings in Euler graphs come in pairs and that the Lemke–Howson algorithm connects two strings or matchings of opposite signs. The equivalence between Nash Equilibria of bimatrix games derived from cyclic polytopes, completely labeled Gale strings, and perfect matchings in Euler Graphs implies that counting Nash equilibria is #P-complete. Although one Nash equilibrium can be computed in polynomial time, we have not succeeded in finding an algorithm that computes a Nash equilibrium of opposite sign. However, we solve this problem for certain special cases, for example planar graphs. We illustrate the difficulties concerning a general polynomial-time algorithm for this problem by means of negative results that demonstrate why a number of approaches towards such an algorithm are unlikely to be successful