English

The maximum forcing number of polyomino

Combinatorics 2014-10-06 v1

Abstract

The forcing number of a perfect matching MM of a graph GG is the cardinality of the smallest subset of MM that is contained in no other perfect matchings of GG. For a planar embedding of a 2-connected bipartite planar graph GG which has a perfect matching, the concept of Clar number of hexagonal system had been extended by Abeledo and Atkinson as follows: a spanning subgraph CC of is called a Clar cover of GG if each of its components is either an even face or an edge, the maximum number of even faces in Clar covers of GG is called Clar number of GG, and the Clar cover with the maximum number of even faces is called the maximum Clar cover. It was proved that if GG is a hexagonal system with a perfect matching MM and KK' is a set of hexagons in a maximum Clar cover of GG, then GKG-K' has a unique 1-factor. Using this result, Xu {\it et. at.} proved that the maximum forcing number of the elementary hexagonal system are equal to their Clar numbers, and then the maximum forcing number of the elementary hexagonal system can be computed in polynomial time. In this paper, we show that an elementary polyomino has a unique perfect matching when removing the set of tetragons from its maximum Clar cover. Thus the maximum forcing number of elementary polyomino equals to its Clar number and can be computed in polynomial time. Also, we have extended our result to the non-elementary polyomino and hexagonal system.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1410.0747,
  title  = {The maximum forcing number of polyomino},
  author = {Liqiong Xu and Yuqing Lin and Fuji Zhang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1410.0747},
  year   = {2014}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T06:12:13.328Z