Spotting Trees with Few Leaves

We show two results related to the Hamiltonicity and $k$-Path algorithms in undirected graphs by Bj\"orklund [FOCS'10], and Bj\"orklund et al., [arXiv'10]. First, we demonstrate that the technique used can be generalized to finding some $k$-vertex tree with $l$ leaves in an $n$-vertex undirected graph in $O^*(1.657^k2^{l/2})$ time. It can be applied as a subroutine to solve the $k$-Internal Spanning Tree ($k$-IST) problem in $O^*(\min(3.455^k, 1.946^n))$ time using polynomial space, improving upon previous algorithms for this problem. In particular, for the first time we break the natural barrier of $O^*(2^n)$. Second, we show that the iterated random bipartition employed by the algorithm can be improved whenever the host graph admits a vertex coloring with few colors; it can be an ordinary proper vertex coloring, a fractional vertex coloring, or a vector coloring. In effect, we show improved bounds for $k$-Path and Hamiltonicity in any graph of maximum degree $\Delta=4,\ldots,12$ or with vector chromatic number at most 8

Laplacian coefficients of unicyclic graphs with the number of leaves and girth

Let $G$ be a graph of order $n$ and let $\mathcal{L}(G,\lambda)=\sum_{k=0}^n (-1)^{k}c_{k}(G)\lambda^{n-k}$ be the characteristic polynomial of its Laplacian matrix. Motivated by Ili\'{c} and Ili\'{c}'s conjecture [A. Ili\'{c}, M. Ili\'{c}, Laplacian coefficients of trees with given number of leaves or vertices of degree two, Linear Algebra and its Applications 431(2009)2195-2202.] on all extremal graphs which minimize all the Laplacian coefficients in the set $\mathcal{U}_{n,l}$ of all $n$-vertex unicyclic graphs with the number of leaves $l$, we investigate properties of the minimal elements in the partial set $(\mathcal{U}_{n,l}^g, \preceq)$ of the Laplacian coefficients, where $\mathcal{U}_{n,l}^g$ denote the set of $n$-vertex unicyclic graphs with the number of leaves $l$ and girth $g$. These results are used to disprove their conjecture. Moreover, the graphs with minimum Laplacian-like energy in $\mathcal{U}_{n,l}^g$ are also studied.Comment: 19 page, 4figure

Improved Bounds for Drawing Trees on Fixed Points with L-shaped Edges

Let $T$ be an $n$-node tree of maximum degree 4, and let $P$ be a set of $n$ points in the plane with no two points on the same horizontal or vertical line. It is an open question whether $T$ always has a planar drawing on $P$ such that each edge is drawn as an orthogonal path with one bend (an "L-shaped" edge). By giving new methods for drawing trees, we improve the bounds on the size of the point set $P$ for which such drawings are possible to: $O(n^{1.55})$ for maximum degree 4 trees; $O(n^{1.22})$ for maximum degree 3 (binary) trees; and $O(n^{1.142})$ for perfect binary trees. Drawing ordered trees with L-shaped edges is harder---we give an example that cannot be done and a bound of $O(n \log n)$ points for L-shaped drawings of ordered caterpillars, which contrasts with the known linear bound for unordered caterpillars.Comment: Appears in the Proceedings of the 25th International Symposium on Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (GD 2017

Parameterized Algorithms for Directed Maximum Leaf Problems

We prove that finding a rooted subtree with at least $k$ leaves in a digraph is a fixed parameter tractable problem. A similar result holds for finding rooted spanning trees with many leaves in digraphs from a wide family $\cal L$ that includes all strong and acyclic digraphs. This settles completely an open question of Fellows and solves another one for digraphs in $\cal L$. Our algorithms are based on the following combinatorial result which can be viewed as a generalization of many results for a `spanning tree with many leaves' in the undirected case, and which is interesting on its own: If a digraph $D\in \cal L$ of order $n$ with minimum in-degree at least 3 contains a rooted spanning tree, then $D$ contains one with at least $(n/2)^{1/5}-1$ leaves

The leafage of a chordal graph

The leafage l(G) of a chordal graph G is the minimum number of leaves of a tree in which G has an intersection representation by subtrees. We obtain upper and lower bounds on l(G) and compute it on special classes. The maximum of l(G) on n-vertex graphs is n - lg n - (1/2) lg lg n + O(1). The proper leafage l*(G) is the minimum number of leaves when no subtree may contain another; we obtain upper and lower bounds on l*(G). Leafage equals proper leafage on claw-free chordal graphs. We use asteroidal sets and structural properties of chordal graphs.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figure