English

On graphs whose flow polynomials have real roots only

Combinatorics 2018-08-02 v1

Abstract

Let GG be a bridgeless graph. In 2011 Kung and Royle showed that all roots of the flow polynomial F(G,λ)F(G,\lambda) of GG are integers if and only if GG is the dual of a chordal and plane graph. In this article, we study whether a bridgeless graph GG for which F(G,λ)F(G,\lambda) has real roots only must be the dual of some chordal and plane graph. We conclude that the answer of this problem for GG is positive if and only if F(G,λ)F(G,\lambda) does not have any real root in the interval (1,2)(1,2). We also prove that for any non-separable and 33-edge connected GG, if GeG-e is also non-separable for each edge ee in GG and every 33-edge-cut of GG consists of edges incident with some vertex of GG, then all roots of P(G,λ)P(G,\lambda) are real if and only if either G{L,Z3,K4}G\in \{L,Z_3,K_4\} or F(G,λ)F(G,\lambda) contains at least 99 real roots in the interval (1,2)(1,2), where LL is the graph with one vertex and one loop and Z3Z_3 is the graph with two vertices and three parallel edges joining these two vertices.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1808.00175,
  title  = {On graphs whose flow polynomials have real roots only},
  author = {Fengming Dong},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1808.00175},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

15 pages, 2 figures. To appear in EJC

R2 v1 2026-06-23T03:21:12.043Z