Critical Groups of Graphs with Dihedral Actions

In this paper we consider the critical group of finite connected graphs which admit harmonic actions by the dihedral group $D_n$. In particular, we show that if the orbits of the $D_n$-action all have either $n$ or $2n$ points then the critical group of such a graph can be decomposed in terms of the critical groups of the quotients of the graph by certain subgroups of the automorphism group. This is analogous to a theorem of Kani and Rosen which decomposes the Jacobians of algebraic curves with a $D_n$-action

The Equivalence of Two Graph Polynomials and a Symmetric Function

The U-polynomial, the polychromate and the symmetric function generalization of the Tutte polynomial due to Stanley are known to be equivalent in the sense that the coefficients of any one of them can be obtained as a function of the coefficients of any other. The definition of each of these functions suggests a natural way in which to generalize them which also captures Tutte's universal V-functions as a specialization. We show that the equivalence remains true for the extended functions thus answering a question raised by Dominic Welsh.Comment: 17 page

On the evaluation of the Tutte polynomial at the points (1,-1) and (2,-1)

C. Merino proved recently the following identity between evaluations of the Tutte polynomial of complete graphs: t($K_{n+2}$; 1,−1) = t($K_n$;2,−1). In this work we extend this result by giving a large class of graphs with this property, that is, graphs G such that there exist two vertices u and v with t(G;1,−1) = t(G−{u,v};2,−1). The class is described in terms of forbidden induced subgraphs and it contains in particular threshold graphs.Postprint (published version

Some inequalities for the Tutte polynomial

We prove that the Tutte polynomial of a coloopless paving matroid is convex along the portions of the line segments x+y=p lying in the positive quadrant. Every coloopless paving matroids is in the class of matroids which contain two disjoint bases or whose ground set is the union of two bases of M*. For this latter class we give a proof that T_M(a,a) <= max {T_M(2a,0), T_M(0,2a)} for a >= 2. We conjecture that T_M(1,1) <= max {T_M(2,0), T_M(0,2)} for the same class of matroids. We also prove this conjecture for some families of graphs and matroids.Comment: 17 page

On the structure of the h-vector of a paving matroid.

We give two proofs that the h-vector of any paving matroid is a pure 0-sequence, thus answering in the affirmative a conjecture made by Stanley, for this particular class of matroids. We also investigate the problem of obtaining good lower bounds for the number of bases of a paving matroid given its rank and number of elements.The first author was supported by Conacyt of México Proyect8397