English

Graphs with large maximum forcing number

Combinatorics 2025-12-30 v1

Abstract

For a graph GG with order 2n2n and a perfect matching, let f(G)f(G) and F(G)F(G) denote the minimum and maximum forcing number of GG respectively. Then 0f(G)F(G)n10\leq f(G)\leq F(G)\leq n-1. Liu and Zhang [10] ever proposed a conjecture: e(G)n2nF(G)e(G)\geq \frac{n^2}{n-F(G)}, where e(G)e(G) denotes the number of edges of GG. In this paper we confirm this conjecture and obtain F(G)nn2e(G)F(G)\leq n-\frac{n^2}{e(G)}. If F(G)=n1F(G)=n-1, Liu and Zhang [9] proved that any two perfect matchings of GG can be obtained from each other by a series of matching switches along 4-cycles. If GG is bipartite and F(G)nkF(G)\geq n-k, 1kn11\leq k\leq n-1, we show that any two perfect matchings of GG can be obtained from each other by a series of matching switches along even cycles of length at most 2(k+1)2(k+1). Finally, we ask whether f(G)nk1f(G)\geq \lceil\frac{n}{k}\rceil-1 holds for such bipartite graphs GG, and give positive answers for the cases k=1,2k=1,2. Further we show all minimum forcing numbers of the bipartite graphs GG of order 2n2n and with F(G)=n2F(G)=n-2 form an integer interval [n2,n2][\lfloor\frac{n}{2}\rfloor, n-2].

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2512.22761,
  title  = {Graphs with large maximum forcing number},
  author = {Qianqian Liu and Ajit A. Diwan and Heping Zhang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.22761},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T08:43:06.838Z