Some Extremal and Structural Problems in Graph Theory Taylor Mitchell Short University of South Carolina
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University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations 2016 Some Extremal And Structural Problems In Graph Theory Taylor Mitchell Short University of South Carolina Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the Mathematics Commons Recommended Citation Short, T. M.(2016). Some Extremal And Structural Problems In Graph Theory. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/3753 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Some extremal and structural problems in graph theory by Taylor Mitchell Short Bachelor of Science College of William and Mary 2008 Master of Science Virginia Commonwealth University 2011 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2016 Accepted by: László Székely, Major Professor Éva Czabarka, Committee Member Linyuan Lu, Committee Member Csilla Farkas, Committee Member Lacy Ford, Senior Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies c Copyright by Taylor Mitchell Short, 2016 All Rights Reserved. ii Acknowledgments First and foremost, thanks to my advisor László Székely. I have learned so much from not only the lessons you taught me, but also from simply being around you. Thank you for your patience, support, and inspiration. Thank you to Éva Czabarka. Your advice has been invaluable. Working closely with you has been an absolute pleasure. To Tomislav Došlić, thank you for hosting me during the Summer 2015. Your kindness and hospitality made my visit to Croatia an experience I will never forget. This work was partially supported by a SPARC Graduate Research Grant from the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of South Carolina and by the NSF DMS under contract 1300547. iii Abstract This work considers three main topics. In Chapter 2, we deal with König-Egerváry graphs. We will give two new characterizations of König-Egerváry graphs as well as prove a related lower bound for the independence number of a graph. In Chapter 3, we study joint degree vectors (JDV). A problem arising from statistics is to determine the maximum number of non-zero elements of a JDV. We provide reasonable lower and upper bounds for this maximum number. Lastly, in Chapter 4 we study a problem in chemical graph theory. In particular, we characterize extremal cases for the number of maximal matchings in two linear polymers of chemical interest: the polyspiro chains and benzenoid chains. We also enumerate maximal matchings in several classes of these linear polymers and use the obtained results to determine the asymptotic behavior of these matchings. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments ............................. iii Abstract ................................... iv List of Figures ............................... vii Chapter 1 Introduction ......................... 1 1.1 König-Egerváry Graphs . 1 1.2 Network Models . 2 1.3 Chemical Graph Theory . 2 Chapter 2 König-Egerváry Theory .................. 4 2.1 Introduction . 4 2.2 Some structural lemmas . 9 2.3 New characterizations of König-Egerváry graphs . 12 2.4 A bound on α(G) ............................. 13 Chapter 3 Joint Degree Vectors ................... 14 3.1 Introduction . 14 3.2 Definitions and preliminary results . 16 3.3 Lower bound construction . 18 3.4 Two upper bounds . 19 v Chapter 4 Maximal matchings in polyspiro and benzenoid chains 31 4.1 Introduction . 31 4.2 Preliminaries . 33 4.3 Chain hexagonal cacti . 36 4.4 Benzenoid chains . 52 4.5 Further developments . 71 Bibliography ................................ 72 vi List of Figures Figure 2.1 G has maximum critical independent set I = {a, b, c}. Theorem 2.2 gives that X = {a, b, c, d, e} and Xc = {f, g, h, i, j}. 6 Figure 2.2 G1 is a König-Egerváry graph with ker(G1) = {a, b} ( core(G1) = nucleus(G1) = {a, b, d} and diadem(G1) = corona(G1) = {a, b, c, d, f}. G2 is not a König-Egerváry graph and has ker(G2) = core(G2) = {a, b} ( nucleus(G2) = {a, b, d} and diadem(G2) = {a, b, c, d, f} ( corona(G) = {a, b, c, d, f, g, h, i, j}................... 7 Figure 2.3 What the M-alternating paths could look like between V (P)∩A and V (P) ∩ S, where solid lines represent matched edges in M and dotted lines represent the unmatched edges. 11 Figure 3.1 The half graph on seven vertices, H7. 18 Figure 3.2 A graph on seven vertices that achieves a higher number of non-zero elements in the JDV than the half graph, H7. 19 Figure 3.3 An upper bound for the ratio of maximum non-zero elements of the bi-degree vector to its length. 21 Figure 3.4 The solution of the discrete and continuous relaxation. The blue line plots the upper bound on αn from Lemma 3.5. The 0 red line is the limit for large n of αn and αn. 21 Figure 4.1 A chain hexagonal cactus of length 6. 34 Figure 4.2 The hexagonal cactus chains Pn, Mn, and On. 35 Figure 4.3 A benzenoid chain of length 6. 35 Figure 4.4 The polyacene, zig-zag polyphenacene, and helicene chains. 36 Figure 4.5 Auxiliary graphs for Pn. ....................... 37 Figure 4.6 Pn with labeled edges a, b, c, and d. 37 vii 1 Figure 4.7 Pn with labeled edges a and b..................... 38 2 Figure 4.8 Pn with labeled edges a, b, and c. 38 3 Figure 4.9 Pn with labeled edges a-d. ..................... 39 Figure 4.10 Auxiliary graphs for Mn........................ 39 Figure 4.11 Mn with labeled edges a-d....................... 40 1 Figure 4.12 Mn with labeled edges a and b. ................... 40 2 Figure 4.13 Mn with labeled edges a-e. ..................... 41 3 Figure 4.14 Mn with labeled edges a-h. ..................... 41 Figure 4.15 Auxiliary graphs for On........................ 42 Figure 4.16 On with labeled edges a-d....................... 42 1 Figure 4.17 On with labeled edges a and b..................... 43 2 Figure 4.18 On with labeled edges a-e. ..................... 43 3 Figure 4.19 On with labeled edges a-d. ..................... 44 Figure 4.20 A terminal hexagon, hm, and its adjacent hexagon, hm−1, in the hexagonal chain cactus Gm. ..................... 48 Figure 4.21 The hexagonal cactus CP. 49 Figure 4.22 The hexagonal cactus CM. 50 Figure 4.23 The hexagonal cactus CO. 51 Figure 4.24 Auxiliary graphs for Ln. ....................... 52 Figure 4.25 Ln with labeled edges a-c....................... 53 1 Figure 4.26 Ln with labeled edges a-e....................... 53 2 Figure 4.27 Ln with labeled edges a-d. ..................... 54 3 Figure 4.28 Ln with labeled edges a-e. ..................... 54 viii Figure 4.29 Auxiliary graphs for Zn........................ 55 Figure 4.30 Zn with labeled edges a-d....................... 56 1 Figure 4.31 Zn with labeled edges a-g....................... 56 2 Figure 4.32 Zn with labeled edges a-d. ..................... 57 3 Figure 4.33 Zn with labeled edges a-e. ..................... 57 4 Figure 4.34 Zn with labeled edges a-f. ..................... 58 5 Figure 4.35 Zn with labeled edges a-e. ..................... 59 Figure 4.36 Auxiliary graphs for Hn........................ 59 Figure 4.37 Hn with labeled edges a-e....................... 60 1 Figure 4.38 Hn with labeled edges a-h....................... 61 2 Figure 4.39 Hn with labeled edges a-i. ..................... 62 3 Figure 4.40 Hn with labeled edges a and b. ................... 63 4 Figure 4.41 Hn with labeled edges a and b. ................... 63 5 Figure 4.42 Hn with labeled edges a-c. ..................... 64 Figure 4.43 A terminal hexagon, hm, and its adjacent hexagon, hm−1, in the benzenoid chain Gm.......................... 67 Figure 4.44 The benzenoid chain BL. 68 Figure 4.45 The benzenoid chain BK. 69 ix Chapter 1 Introduction This work concerns the results from [45, 13, 17], each addressing problems from different areas within graph theory. In this chapter, we give a brief introduction to the topics considered. 1.1 König-Egerváry Graphs Every n-vertex, simple graph G satisfies α(G) + µ(G) ≤ n, where α(G) is the in- dependence number of G and µ(G) is the matching number of G. We say G is a König-Egerváry graph if α(G) + µ(G) = n. The classical König-Egerváry theorem implies that every bipartite graph is a König-Egerváry graph, however, there are non-bipartite graphs which are König-Egerváry as well. Therefore, it is natural to question whether a characterization of König-Egerváry graphs exists. Deming [14] was one of the first to work toward a characterization of König- Egerváry graphs, however, his result only applied to graphs with a perfect matching. Around the same time, Sterboul [47] produced an equivalent result. Larson [34] gave a characterization of König-Egerváry graphs involving critical indepedent sets. Jarden, Levit, and Mandrescu [27, 28] questioned whether a more global characterization existed, involving unions and intersections of critical inde- pendent sets. In Chapter 2, we address their questions as well as answer a related conjecture on the independence number of a graph. 1 1.2 Network Models Degree sequences and degree distributions have been subjects of study in graph theory and many other fields in the past decades. In particular, in social network analysis, they have been shown to possess a great expressive power in representing and statis- tically modeling networks. Joint degree distributions are a generalization of degree distributions that deal with higher order induced subgraphs than just the nodes of the graph.