Related papers: A conjecture on independent sets and graph covers
The Union Closed Sets Conjecture is one of the most renowned problems in combinatorics. Its appeal lies in the simplicity of its statement contrasted with the potential complexity of its resolution. The conjecture posits that, in any union…
In this paper, two open conjectures are disproved. One conjecture regards independent coverings of sparse partite graphs, whereas the other conjecture regards orthogonal colourings of tree graphs. A relation between independent coverings…
We consider numbers and sizes of independent sets in graphs with minimum degree at least $d$, when the number $n$ of vertices is large. In particular we investigate which of these graphs yield the maximum numbers of independent sets of…
Many quantities of interest in communications, signal processing, artificial intelligence, and other areas can be expressed as the partition sum of some factor graph. Although the exact calculation of the partition sum is in many cases…
Settling Kahn's conjecture (2001), we prove the following upper bound on the number $i(G)$ of independent sets in a graph $G$ without isolated vertices: \[ i(G) \le \prod_{uv \in E(G)} i(K_{d_u,d_v})^{1/(d_u d_v)}, \] where $d_u$ is the…
In 1979 Frankl conjectured that in a finite non-trivial union-closed collection of sets there has to be an element that belongs to at least half the sets. We show that this is equivalent to the conjecture that in a finite non-trivial graph…
We characterize the connected graphs of given order $n$ and given independence number $\alpha$ that maximize the number of maximum independent sets. For $3\leq \alpha\leq n/2$, there is a unique such graph that arises from the disjoint…
Amongst $d$-regular $r$-uniform hypergraphs on $n$ vertices, which ones have the largest number of independent sets? While the analogous problem for graphs (originally raised by Granville) is now well-understood, it is not even clear what…
We present a combinatorial characterization of the Bethe entropy function of a factor graph, such a characterization being in contrast to the original, analytical, definition of this function. We achieve this combinatorial characterization…
We show that the number of independent sets in every outerplanar graph is greater than the number of its 4-dominating sets.
In this paper, we count the number of independent sets of a type of graph $G(\mathcal{A},q)$ associated to some hyperplane arrangement $\mathcal{A}$, which is a generalization of the construction of graphical arrangements. We show that when…
Computing maximum independent sets in graphs is an important problem in computer science. In this paper, we develop an evolutionary algorithm to tackle the problem. The core innovations of the algorithm are very natural combine operations…
Counting independent sets in graphs and hypergraphs under a variety of restrictions is a classical question with a long history. It is the subject of the celebrated container method which found numerous spectacular applications over the…
Independent sets play a key role into the study of graphs and important problems arising in graph theory reduce to them. We define the monomial ideal of independent sets associated to a finite simple graph and describe its homological and…
Given a graph $G$, the \textit{independence complex} $I(G)$ is the simplicial complex whose faces are the independent sets of $V(G)$. Let $\tilde{b}_i$ denote the $i$-th reduced Betti number of $I(G)$, and let $b(G)$ denote the sum of…
Given a partition ${\mathcal V}=(V_1, \ldots,V_m)$ of the vertex set of a graph $G$, an {\em independent transversal} (IT) is an independent set in $G$ that contains one vertex from each $V_i$. A {\em fractional IT} is a non-negative real…
This paper studies the problem of upper bounding the number of independent sets in a graph, expressed in terms of its degree distribution. For bipartite regular graphs, Kahn (2001) established a tight upper bound using an…
We determine the maximum number of maximal independent sets of arbitrary graphs in terms of their covering numbers and we completely characterize the extremal graphs. As an application, we give a similar result for K\"onig-Egerv\'ary graphs…
An independent vertex set of a graph is a set of vertices of the graph in which no two vertices are adjacent, and a maximal independent set is one that is not a proper subset of any other independent set. In this paper we count the number…
The main focus of this thesis is a generalization of covering arrays, covering arrays on graphs. Two vectors v,w in Z_k^n are qualitatively independent if for all ordered pairs (a,b) in Z_k x Z_k there is a position i in the vectors where…