Product Dimension of Forests and Bounded Treewidth Graphs

The product dimension of a graph G is defined as the minimum natural number l such that G is an induced subgraph of a direct product of l complete graphs. In this paper we study the product dimension of forests, bounded treewidth graphs and k-degenerate graphs. We show that every forest on n vertices has a product dimension at most 1.441logn+3. This improves the best known upper bound of 3logn for the same due to Poljak and Pultr. The technique used in arriving at the above bound is extended and combined with a result on existence of orthogonal Latin squares to show that every graph on n vertices with a treewidth at most t has a product dimension at most (t+2)(logn+1). We also show that every k-degenerate graph on n vertices has a product dimension at most \ceil{8.317klogn}+1. This improves the upper bound of 32klogn for the same by Eaton and Rodl.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure

Wide partitions, Latin tableaux, and Rota's basis conjecture

Say that mu is a ``subpartition'' of an integer partition lambda if the multiset of parts of mu is a submultiset of the parts of lambda, and define an integer partition lambda to be ``wide'' if for every subpartition mu of lambda, mu >= mu' in dominance order (where mu' denotes the conjugate or transpose of mu). Then Brian Taylor and the first author have conjectured that an integer partition lambda is wide if and only if there exists a tableau of shape lambda such that (1) for all i, the entries in the ith row of the tableau are precisely the integers from 1 to lambda_i inclusive, and (2) for all j, the entries in the jth column of the tableau are pairwise distinct. This conjecture was originally motivated by Rota's basis conjecture and, if true, yields a new class of integer multiflow problems that satisfy max-flow min-cut and integrality. Wide partitions also yield a class of graphs that satisfy ``delta-conjugacy'' (in the sense of Greene and Kleitman), and the above conjecture implies that these graphs furthermore have a completely saturated stable set partition. We present several partial results, but the conjecture remains very much open.Comment: Joined forces with Goemans and Vondrak---several new partial results; 28 pages, submitted to Adv. Appl. Mat

The Bounded Edge Coloring Problem and Offline Crossbar Scheduling

This paper introduces a variant of the classical edge coloring problem in graphs that can be applied to an offline scheduling problem for crossbar switches. We show that the problem is NP-complete, develop three lower bounds bounds on the optimal solution value and evaluate the performance of several approximation algorithms, both analytically and experimentally. We show how to approximate an optimal solution with a worst-case performance ratio of $3/2$ and our experimental results demonstrate that the best algorithms produce results that very closely track a lower bound

Completion and deficiency problems

Given a partial Steiner triple system (STS) of order $n$, what is the order of the smallest complete STS it can be embedded into? The study of this question goes back more than 40 years. In this paper we answer it for relatively sparse STSs, showing that given a partial STS of order $n$ with at most $r \le \varepsilon n^2$ triples, it can always be embedded into a complete STS of order $n+O(\sqrt{r})$, which is asymptotically optimal. We also obtain similar results for completions of Latin squares and other designs. This suggests a new, natural class of questions, called deficiency problems. Given a global spanning property $\mathcal{P}$ and a graph $G$, we define the deficiency of the graph $G$ with respect to the property $\mathcal{P}$ to be the smallest positive integer $t$ such that the join $G\ast K_t$ has property $\mathcal{P}$. To illustrate this concept we consider deficiency versions of some well-studied properties, such as having a $K_k$-decomposition, Hamiltonicity, having a triangle-factor and having a perfect matching in hypergraphs. The main goal of this paper is to propose a systematic study of these problems; thus several future research directions are also given