On Domination Number and Distance in Graphs

A vertex set $S$ of a graph $G$ is a \emph{dominating set} if each vertex of $G$ either belongs to $S$ or is adjacent to a vertex in $S$. The \emph{domination number} $\gamma(G)$ of $G$ is the minimum cardinality of $S$ as $S$ varies over all dominating sets of $G$. It is known that $\gamma(G) \ge \frac{1}{3}(diam(G)+1)$, where $diam(G)$ denotes the diameter of $G$. Define $C_r$ as the largest constant such that $\gamma(G) \ge C_r \sum_{1 \le i < j \le r}d(x_i, x_j)$ for any $r$ vertices of an arbitrary connected graph $G$; then $C_2=\frac{1}{3}$ in this view. The main result of this paper is that $C_r=\frac{1}{r(r-1)}$ for $r\geq 3$. It immediately follows that $\gamma(G)\geq \mu(G)=\frac{1}{n(n-1)}W(G)$, where $\mu(G)$ and $W(G)$ are respectively the average distance and the Wiener index of $G$ of order $n$. As an application of our main result, we prove a conjecture of DeLaVi\~{n}a et al.\;that $\gamma(G)\geq \frac{1}{2}(ecc_G(B)+1)$, where $ecc_G(B)$ denotes the eccentricity of the boundary of an arbitrary connected graph $G$.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Domination in Functigraphs

Let $G_1$ and $G_2$ be disjoint copies of a graph $G$, and let $f: V(G_1) \rightarrow V(G_2)$ be a function. Then a \emph{functigraph} $C(G, f)=(V, E)$ has the vertex set $V=V(G_1) \cup V(G_2)$ and the edge set $E=E(G_1) \cup E(G_2) \cup \{uv \mid u \in V(G_1), v \in V(G_2), v=f(u)\}$. A functigraph is a generalization of a \emph{permutation graph} (also known as a \emph{generalized prism}) in the sense of Chartrand and Harary. In this paper, we study domination in functigraphs. Let $\gamma(G)$ denote the domination number of $G$. It is readily seen that $\gamma(G) \le \gamma(C(G,f)) \le 2 \gamma(G)$. We investigate for graphs generally, and for cycles in great detail, the functions which achieve the upper and lower bounds, as well as the realization of the intermediate values.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figure

Metric dimension and zero forcing number of two families of line graphs

summary:Zero forcing number has recently become an interesting graph parameter studied in its own right since its introduction by the “AIM Minimum Rank–Special Graphs Work Group”, whereas metric dimension is a well-known graph parameter. We investigate the metric dimension and the zero forcing number of some line graphs by first determining the metric dimension and the zero forcing number of the line graphs of wheel graphs and the bouquet of circles. We prove that $Z(G) \le 2Z(L(G))$ for a simple and connected graph $G$. Further, we show that $Z(G) \le Z(L(G))$ when $G$ is a tree or when $G$ contains a Hamiltonian path and has a certain number of edges. We compare the metric dimension with the zero forcing number of a line graph by demonstrating a couple of inequalities between the two parameters. We end by stating some open problems