Extremal Problems for Subset Divisors

Let $A$ be a set of $n$ positive integers. We say that a subset $B$ of $A$ is a divisor of $A$, if the sum of the elements in $B$ divides the sum of the elements in $A$. We are interested in the following extremal problem. For each $n$, what is the maximum number of divisors a set of $n$ positive integers can have? We determine this function exactly for all values of $n$. Moreover, for each $n$ we characterize all sets that achieve the maximum. We also prove results for the $k$-subset analogue of our problem. For this variant, we determine the function exactly in the special case that $n=2k$. We also characterize all sets that achieve this bound when $n=2k$.Comment: 10 pages, 0 figures. This is essentially the journal version of the paper, which appeared in the Electronic Journal of Combinatoric

Tree-chromatic number is not equal to path-chromatic number

For a graph $G$ and a tree-decomposition $(T, \mathcal{B})$ of $G$, the chromatic number of $(T, \mathcal{B})$ is the maximum of $\chi(G[B])$, taken over all bags $B \in \mathcal{B}$. The tree-chromatic number of $G$ is the minimum chromatic number of all tree-decompositions $(T, \mathcal{B})$ of $G$. The path-chromatic number of $G$ is defined analogously. In this paper, we introduce an operation that always increases the path-chromatic number of a graph. As an easy corollary of our construction, we obtain an infinite family of graphs whose path-chromatic number and tree-chromatic number are different. This settles a question of Seymour. Our results also imply that the path-chromatic numbers of the Mycielski graphs are unbounded.Comment: 11 pages, 0 figure

The matroid secretary problem for minor-closed classes and random matroids

We prove that for every proper minor-closed class $M$ of matroids representable over a prime field, there exists a constant-competitive matroid secretary algorithm for the matroids in $M$. This result relies on the extremely powerful matroid minor structure theory being developed by Geelen, Gerards and Whittle. We also note that for asymptotically almost all matroids, the matroid secretary algorithm that selects a random basis, ignoring weights, is $(2+o(1))$-competitive. In fact, assuming the conjecture that almost all matroids are paving, there is a $(1+o(1))$-competitive algorithm for almost all matroids.Comment: 15 pages, 0 figure

Smaller Extended Formulations for the Spanning Tree Polytope of Bounded-genus Graphs

We give an $O(g^{1/2} n^{3/2} + g^{3/2} n^{1/2})$-size extended formulation for the spanning tree polytope of an $n$-vertex graph embedded on a surface of genus $g$, improving on the known $O(n^2 + g n)$-size extended formulations following from Wong and Martin.Comment: v3: fixed some typo

Even-cycle decompositions of graphs with no odd-K4K_4-minor

An even-cycle decomposition of a graph G is a partition of E(G) into cycles of even length. Evidently, every Eulerian bipartite graph has an even-cycle decomposition. Seymour (1981) proved that every 2-connected loopless Eulerian planar graph with an even number of edges also admits an even-cycle decomposition. Later, Zhang (1994) generalized this to graphs with no $K_5$-minor. Our main theorem gives sufficient conditions for the existence of even-cycle decompositions of graphs in the absence of odd minors. Namely, we prove that every 2-connected loopless Eulerian odd-$K_4$-minor-free graph with an even number of edges has an even-cycle decomposition. This is best possible in the sense that `odd-$K_4$-minor-free' cannot be replaced with `odd-$K_5$-minor-free.' The main technical ingredient is a structural characterization of the class of odd-$K_4$-minor-free graphs, which is due to Lov\'asz, Seymour, Schrijver, and Truemper.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures; minor revisio