English

A note on the threshold numbers of cycles

Combinatorics 2025-05-27 v3

Abstract

A graph G=(V,E)G=(V,E) is said to be a \textit{kk-threshold graph} with \textit{thresholds} θ1<θ2<...<θk\theta_1<\theta_2<...<\theta_k if there is a map r:VRr: V \longrightarrow \mathbb{R} such that uvEuv\in E if and only if θir(u)+r(v)\theta_i\le r(u)+r(v) holds for an odd number of i[k]i\in [k]. The \textit{threshold number} of GG, denoted by Θ(G)\Theta(G), is the smallest positive integer kk such that GG is a kk-threshold graph. In this paper, we determine the exact threshold numbers of cycles by proving Θ(Cn)={1if n=3,2if n=4,4if n5, \Theta(C_n)=\begin{cases} 1 & if\ n=3, 2 & if\ n=4, 4 & if\ n\ge 5, \end{cases} where CnC_n is the cycle with nn vertices.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2406.13955,
  title  = {A note on the threshold numbers of cycles},
  author = {Runze Wang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.13955},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

more succinct; v2: corrected a mistake, made some minor modifications, added some references

R2 v1 2026-06-28T17:12:52.513Z