Related papers: Independent sets near the lower bound in bounded d…

An independent dominating set of a graph, also known as a maximal independent set, is a set $S$ of pairwise non-adjacent vertices such that every vertex not in $S$ is adjacent to some vertex in $S$. We prove that for $\Delta=4$ or…

Galvin showed that for all fixed $\delta$ and sufficiently large $n$, the $n$-vertex graph with minimum degree $\delta$ that admits the most independent sets is the complete bipartite graph $K_{\delta,n-\delta}$. He conjectured that except…

The size of a largest independent set of vertices in a given graph $G$ is denoted by $\alpha(G)$ and is called its independence number (or stability number). Given a graph $G$ and an integer $K,$ it is NP-complete to decide whether…

An $n$-vertex, $d$-regular graph can have at most $2^{n/2+o_d(n)}$ independent sets. In this paper we address what happens with this upper bound when we impose the further condition that the graph has independence number at most $\alpha$.…

We consider a natural, yet seemingly not much studied, extremal problem in bipartite graphs. A bi-hole of size $t$ in a bipartite graph $G$ is a copy of $K_{t, t}$ in the bipartite complement of $G$. Let $f(n, \Delta)$ be the largest $k$…

The $k$-independence number of a graph $G$ is the maximum size of a set of vertices at pairwise distance greater than $k$. In this paper, for each positive integer $k$, we prove sharp upper bounds for the $k$-independence number in an…

We study the problem of maximizing the number of independent sets in $n$-vertex $k$-chromatic $\ell$-connected graphs. First we consider maximizing the total number of independent sets in such graphs with $n$ sufficiently large, and for…

Let $G = (V,E)$ be a graph and $k \ge 0$ an integer. A $k$-independent set $S \subseteq V$ is a set of vertices such that the maximum degree in the graph induced by $S$ is at most $k$. With $\alpha_k(G)$ we denote the maximum cardinality of…

The 4 Color Theorem (4CT) implies that every $n$-vertex planar graph has an independent set of size at least $\frac{n}4$; this is best possible, as shown by the disjoint union of many copies of $K_4$. In 1968, Erd\H{o}s asked whether this…

Every triangle-free planar graph on n vertices has an independent set of size at least (n+1)/3, and this lower bound is tight. We give an algorithm that, given a triangle-free planar graph G on n vertices and an integer k>=0, decides…

Nielsen proved that the maximum number of maximal independent sets (MIS's) of size $k$ in an $n$-vertex graph is asymptotic to $(n/k)^k$, with the extremal construction a disjoint union of $k$ cliques with sizes as close to $n/k$ as…

How large must the chromatic number of a graph be, in terms of the graph's maximum degree, to ensure that the most efficient way to reduce the chromatic number by removing vertices is to remove an independent set? By a reduction to a…

This paper generalizes and unifies the existing spectral bounds on the $k$-independence number of a graph, which is the maximum size of a set of vertices at pairwise distance greater than $k$. The previous bounds known in the literature…

Determining the size of a maximum independent set of a graph $G$, denoted by $\alpha(G)$, is an NP-hard problem. Therefore, many attempts are made to find upper and lower bounds, or exact values of $\alpha (G)$ for special classes of…

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…

For a graph $G$ and a parameter $k$, we call a vertex $k$-enabling if it belongs both to a clique of size $k$ and to an independent set of size $k$, and we call it $k$-excluding otherwise. Motivated by issues that arise in secret sharing…

An isolating set of a graph is a set of vertices $S$ such that, if $S$ and its neighborhood is removed, only isolated vertices remain; and the isolation number is the minimum size of such a set. It is known that for every connected graph…

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…

We investigate the list packing number of a graph, the least $k$ such that there are always $k$ disjoint proper list-colourings whenever we have lists all of size $k$ associated to the vertices. We are curious how the behaviour of the list…

In this paper, we obtain two spectral upper bounds for the $k$-independence number of a graph which is is the maximum size of a set of vertices at pairwise distance greater than $k$. We construct graphs that attain equality for our first…