English

An equality for balanced digraphs

Combinatorics 2025-11-21 v2

Abstract

Consider a directed multigraph DD that is balanced (i.e., at each vertex, the indegree equals the outdegree). Let AA be its set of arcs. Fix an integer kk. Let ss be a vertex of DD. We show that the number of kk-element subsets BB of AA that contain no cycles but contain a path from each vertex to ss (we call them "ss-convergences") is independent on ss. This generalizes known facts about spanning arborescences, acyclic orientations and maximal acyclic subdigraphs (or, equivalently, minimum feedback arc sets). Moreover, this result can be generalized even further, replacing "contain no cycles" with "have a given set of cycles".

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2507.22388,
  title  = {An equality for balanced digraphs},
  author = {Darij Grinberg and Benjamin Liber},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.22388},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

21 pages. v2 adds Theorems 1.3 and 1.5 and further details in the proofs. Comments are welcome!

R2 v1 2026-07-01T04:25:22.772Z