Related papers: On Zero-free Intervals of Flow Polynomials

A fork is a graph obtained from $K_{1,3}$ (usually called claw) by subdividing an edge once. A graph is perfectly divisible if for each of its induced subgraph $H$, $V(H)$ can be partitioned into $A$ and $B$ such that $H[A]$ is perfect and…

For an integer $k$ at least $2$, and a graph $G$, let $f_k(G)$ be the minimum cardinality of a set $X$ of vertices of $G$ such that $G-X$ has either $k$ vertices of maximum degree or order less than $k$. Caro and Yuster (Discrete…

Let $G = (V,E)$ be a finite, simple, connected graph with chromatic polynomial $P_G(q)$. Sokal \cite{sokal} proved that the roots of the chromatic polynomial of $G$ are bounded in absolute value by $KD$ where, $D$ is the maximum degree of…

Let $G=(V,E)$ be a graph with four distinguished vertices, two sources $s_1, s_2$ and two sinks $t_1,t_2$, let $c:\, E \rightarrow \mathbb Z_+$ be a capacity function, and let ${\cal P}$ be the set of all simple paths in $G$ from $s_1$ to…

Let $k\ge 2$ be an integer and $T_1,\ldots, T_k$ be spanning trees of a graph $G$. If for any pair of vertices $(u,v)$ of $V(G)$, the paths from $u$ to $v$ in each $T_i$, $1\le i\le k$, do not contain common edges and common vertices,…

The alliance polynomial of a graph $G$ with order $n$ and maximum degree $\Delta$ is the polynomial $A(G; x) = \sum_{k=-\Delta}^{\Delta} A_{k}(G) \, x^{n+k}$, where $A_{k}(G)$ is the number of exact defensive $k$-alliances in $G$. We obtain…

For any positive integer $t$, a \emph{$t$-broom} is a graph obtained from $K_{1,t+1}$ by subdividing an edge once. In this paper, we show that, for graphs $G$ without induced $t$-brooms, we have $\chi(G) = o(\omega(G)^{t+1})$, where…

We consider a class of real random polynomials, indexed by an integer d, of large degree n and focus on the number of real roots of such random polynomials. The probability that such polynomials have no real root in the interval [0,1]…

Given a simple undirected graph $G$ and a positive integer $k$, the $k$-forcing number of $G$, denoted $F_k(G)$, is the minimum number of vertices that need to be initially colored so that all vertices eventually become colored during the…

Let $\mathrm{rex}(n, F)$ denote the maximum number of edges in an $n$-vertex graph that is regular and does not contain $F$ as a subgraph. We give lower bounds on $\mathrm{rex}(n, F)$, that are best possible up to a constant factor, when…

We survey results and conjectures concerning the zero distribution of chromatic and flow polynomials of graphs, and characteristic polynomials of matroids.

A graph $G$ is $k$-vertex-critical if $\chi(G) = k$ but $\chi(G-v)<k$ for all $v \in V(G)$. A graph is $(H_1,H_2)$-free if it contains no induced subgraph isomorphic to $H_1$ nor $H_2$. A $W_4$ is the graph consisting of a $C_4$ plus an…

If $G$ is a $k$-chromatic graph of order $n$ then it is known that the chromatic polynomial of $G$, $\pi(G,x)$, is at most $x(x-1)\cdots (x-(k-1))x^{n-k} = (x)_{\downarrow k}x^{n-k}$ for every $x\in \mathbb{N}$. We improve here this bound…

A graph $G$ is said to be $F$-free, if $G$ does not contain any copy of $F$. $G$ is said to be $F$-semi-saturated, if the addition of any nonedge $e \not \in E(G)$ would create a new copy of $F$ in $G+e$. $G$ is said to be $F$-saturated, if…

The independence polynomial $I(G, x)$ of a graph $G$ is the polynomial in variable $x$ in which the coefficient $a_n$ on $x^n$ gives the number of independent subsets $S \subseteq V(G)$ of vertices of $G$ such that $|S| = n$. $I(G, x)$ is…

We give a polynomial time algorithm that finds the maximum weight stable set in a graph that does not contain an induced path on seven vertices or a bull (the graph with vertices $a$, $b$, $c$, $d$, $e$ and edges $ab$, $bc$, $cd$, $be$,…

A graph is called (claw,diamond)-free if it contains neither a claw (a $K_{1,3}$) nor a diamond (a $K_4$ with an edge removed) as an induced subgraph. Equivalently, (claw,diamond)-free graphs can be characterized as line graphs of…

Let $G$ be a graph on $n$ vertices. A linear forest is a graph consisting of vertex-disjoint paths and isolated vertices. A maximum linear forest of $G$ is a subgraph of $G$ with maximum number of edges, which is a linear forest. We denote…

The flow polytope $\mathcal{F}_{\widetilde{G}}$ is the set of nonnegative unit flows on the graph $\widetilde{G}$. The subdivision algebra of flow polytopes prescribes a way to dissect a flow polytope $\mathcal{F}_{\widetilde{G}}$ into…

We consider two combinatorial models on bunkbed graphs: maximum flow and self-avoiding walks. A bunkbed graph is defined as the Cartesian product $G\times K_2$, where $G$ is a finite graph and $K_2$ is the complete graph on two vertices,…