Enumeration of idempotents in planar diagram monoids

We classify and enumerate the idempotents in several planar diagram monoids: namely, the Motzkin, Jones (a.k.a. Temperley-Lieb) and Kauffman monoids. The classification is in terms of certain vertex- and edge-coloured graphs associated to Motzkin diagrams. The enumeration is necessarily algorithmic in nature, and is based on parameters associated to cycle components of these graphs. We compare our algorithms to existing algorithms for enumerating idempotents in arbitrary (regular *-) semigroups, and give several tables of calculated values.Comment: Majorly revised (new title, new abstract, one additional author), 24 pages, 6 figures, 8 tables, 5 algorithm

Red-blue clique partitions and (1-1)-transversals

Motivated by the problem of Gallai on $(1-1)$-transversals of $2$-intervals, it was proved by the authors in 1969 that if the edges of a complete graph $K$ are colored with red and blue (both colors can appear on an edge) so that there is no monochromatic induced $C_4$ and $C_5$ then the vertices of $K$ can be partitioned into a red and a blue clique. Aharoni, Berger, Chudnovsky and Ziani recently strengthened this by showing that it is enough to assume that there is no induced monochromatic $C_4$ and there is no induced $C_5$ in {\em one of the colors}. Here this is strengthened further, it is enough to assume that there is no monochromatic induced $C_4$ and there is no $K_5$ on which both color classes induce a $C_5$. We also answer a question of Kaiser and Rabinovich, giving an example of six $2$-convex sets in the plane such that any three intersect but there is no $(1-1)$-transversal for them

An asymptotic bound for the strong chromatic number

The strong chromatic number $\chi_{\text{s}}(G)$ of a graph $G$ on $n$ vertices is the least number $r$ with the following property: after adding $r \lceil n/r \rceil - n$ isolated vertices to $G$ and taking the union with any collection of spanning disjoint copies of $K_r$ in the same vertex set, the resulting graph has a proper vertex-colouring with $r$ colours. We show that for every $c > 0$ and every graph $G$ on $n$ vertices with $\Delta(G) \ge cn$, $\chi_{\text{s}}(G) \leq (2 + o(1)) \Delta(G)$, which is asymptotically best possible.Comment: Minor correction, accepted for publication in Combin. Probab. Compu

Dyck paths and pattern-avoiding matchings

How many matchings on the vertex set V={1,2,...,2n} avoid a given configuration of three edges? Chen, Deng and Du have shown that the number of matchings that avoid three nesting edges is equal to the number of matchings avoiding three pairwise crossing edges. In this paper, we consider other forbidden configurations of size three. We present a bijection between matchings avoiding three crossing edges and matchings avoiding an edge nested below two crossing edges. This bijection uses non-crossing pairs of Dyck paths of length 2n as an intermediate step. Apart from that, we give a bijection that maps matchings avoiding two nested edges crossed by a third edge onto the matchings avoiding all configurations from an infinite family, which contains the configuration consisting of three crossing edges. We use this bijection to show that for matchings of size n>3, it is easier to avoid three crossing edges than to avoid two nested edges crossed by a third edge. In this updated version of this paper, we add new references to papers that have obtained analogous results in a different context.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, important references adde

On the strong chromatic number of random graphs

Let G be a graph with n vertices, and let k be an integer dividing n. G is said to be strongly k-colorable if for every partition of V(G) into disjoint sets V_1 \cup ... \cup V_r, all of size exactly k, there exists a proper vertex k-coloring of G with each color appearing exactly once in each V_i. In the case when k does not divide n, G is defined to be strongly k-colorable if the graph obtained by adding k \lceil n/k \rceil - n isolated vertices is strongly k-colorable. The strong chromatic number of G is the minimum k for which G is strongly k-colorable. In this paper, we study the behavior of this parameter for the random graph G(n, p). In the dense case when p >> n^{-1/3}, we prove that the strong chromatic number is a.s. concentrated on one value \Delta+1, where \Delta is the maximum degree of the graph. We also obtain several weaker results for sparse random graphs.Comment: 16 page