Related papers: Large independent sets from local considerations

We study the tractability of the maximum independent set problem from the viewpoint of graph width parameters, with the goal of defining a width parameter that is as general as possible and allows to solve independent set in polynomial-time…

Let $r\ge 3$ be a fixed constant and let $ {\mathcal H}$ be an $r$-uniform, $D$-regular hypergraph on $N$ vertices. Assume further that $ D > N^\varepsilon $ for some $ \varepsilon>0 $. Consider the random greedy algorithm for forming an…

Bollob\'as and Nikiforov [J. Combin. Theory, Ser. B. 97 (2007) 859--865] conjectured the following. If $G$ is a $K_{r+1}$-free graph on at least $r+1$ vertices and $m$ edges, then $\lambda^2_1(G)+\lambda^2_2(G)\leq \frac{r-1}{r}\cdot2m$,…

Let $i_t(G)$ be the number of independent sets of size $t$ in a graph $G$. Alavi, Erd\H{o}s, Malde and Schwenk made the conjecture that if $G$ is a tree then the independent set sequence $\{i_t(G)\}_{t\geq 0}$ of $G$ is unimodal; Levit and…

Consider classical Kneser's graph $K(n,r)$: for two natural numbers $ r, n $ such that $r \le n / 2$, its vertices are all the subsets of $[n]=\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ of size $r$, and two such vertices are adjacent if the corresponding subsets…

Let $G=(V,E)$ be a finite simple graph. In this paper, we study the degree of the $h$-polynomial of the edge ideal of $G$ in relation to the independence number of $G$. Our approach is based on the value of the independence polynomial 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…

In this paper, we study the independence polynomial $P_G(x)$ of a finite simple graph $G$, with emphasis on the evaluation at $x=-1$, symmetry, and its connection with the $h$-polynomial of the edge ideal of $G$. For big star graphs, we…

The {\em independence ratio} of a graph $G$ is defined by \[ \iota(G) := \sup_{X \subset V(G)} \frac{|X|}{\alpha(X)},\] where $\alpha(X)$ is the independence number of the subgraph of $G$ induced by $X$. The independence ratio is a…

Paul Erd\H{o}s suggested the following problem: Determine or estimate the number of maximal triangle-free graphs on $n$ vertices. Here we show that the number of maximal triangle-free graphs is at most $2^{n^2/8+o(n^2)}$, which matches the…

Given a graph $H$ and a natural number $n$, the extremal number $\mathrm{ex}(n, H)$ is the largest number of edges in an $n$-vertex graph containing no copy of $H$. In this paper, we obtain a general upper bound for the extremal number of…

A theorem of Ding, Oporowski, Oxley, and Vertigan implies that any sufficiently large twin-free graph contains a large matching, a co-matching, or a half-graph as a semi-induced subgraph. The sizes of these unavoidable patterns are measured…

The tensor product of two graphs, $G$ and $H$, has a vertex set $V(G)\times V(H)$ and an edge between $(u,v)$ and $(u',v')$ iff both $u u' \in E(G)$ and $v v' \in E(H)$. Let $A(G)$ denote the limit of the independence ratios of tensor…

Given a fixed graph $H$, a real number $p\in(0,1)$, and an infinite Erd\H{o}s-R\'enyi graph $G\sim G(\infty,p)$, how many adjacency queries do we have to make to find a copy of $H$ inside $G$ with probability $1/2$? Determining this number…

A $k$-independent set in a connected graph is a set of vertices such that any two vertices in the set are at distance greater than $k$ in the graph. The $k$-independence number of a graph, denoted $\alpha_k$, is the size of a largest…

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…

We consider the number of independent sets in hypergraphs, which allows us to define the independence density of countable hypergraphs. Hypergraph independence densities include a broad family of densities over graphs and relational…

The residue of a graph is the number of zeros left after iteratively applying the Havel-Hakimi algorithm to its degree sequence. Favaron, Mah\'{e}o, and Sacl\'{e} showed that the residue is a lower bound on the independence number. The…

The independence polynomial $I(G,x)$ of a finite graph $G$ is the generating function for the sequence of the number of independent sets of each cardinality. We investigate whether, given a fixed number of vertices and edges, there exists…

We study the following inverse graph-theoretic problem: how many vertices should a graph have given that it has a specified value of some parameter. We obtain asymptotic for the minimal number of vertices of the graph with the given number…