Related papers: Piercing independent sets in graphs without large …

The Hadwiger number of a graph $G$, denoted $h(G)$, is the largest integer $t$ such that $G$ contains $K_t$ as a minor. A famous conjecture due to Hadwiger in 1943 states that for every graph $G$, $h(G) \ge \chi(G)$, where $\chi(G)$ denotes…

Recently, settling a question of Erd\H{o}s, Balogh and Pet\v{r}\'{i}\v{c}kov\'{a} showed that there are at most $2^{n^2/8+o(n^2)}$ $n$-vertex maximal triangle-free graphs, matching the previously known lower bound. Here we characterize the…

A hole is an induced cycle of length at least 4. Let $\l\ge 2$ be a positive integer, let ${\cal G}_l$ denote the family of graphs which have girth $2\l+1$ and have no holes of odd length at least $2\l+3$, and let $G\in {\cal G}_{\l}$. For…

Given graphs H_1,...,H_k, we study the minimum order of a graph G such that for each i, the induced copies of H_i in G cover V(G). We prove a general upper bound of twice the sum of the numbers m_i, where m_i is one less than the order of…

The \textit{longest path transversal number} of a connected graph $G$, denoted by $lpt(G)$, is the minimum size of a set of vertices of $G$ that intersects all longest paths in $G$. We present constant upper bounds for the longest path…

For a connected graph $G=(V,E)$, a matching $M\subseteq E$ is a matching cut of $G$ if $G-M$ is disconnected. It is known that for an integer $d$, the corresponding decision problem Matching Cut is polynomial-time solvable for graphs of…

A graph is "$H$-free" if it has no induced subgraph isomorphic to $H$. A conjecture of Conlon, Fox and Sudakov states that for every graph $H$, there exists $s>0$ such that in every $H$-free graph with $n>1$ vertices, either some vertex has…

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 $\omega(H[B]) < \omega(H)$, and a graph $G$ is perfectly weight divisible if for every…

Given a graph $G$, the Hadwiger number of $G$, denoted by $h(G)$, is the largest integer $k$ such that $G$ contains the complete graph $K_k$ as a minor. A hole in $G$ is an induced cycle of length at least four. Hadwiger's Conjecture from…

We prove that for every $n$, there is a graph $G$ with $\chi(G) \geq n$ and $\omega(G) \leq 3$ such that every induced subgraph $H$ of $G$ with $\omega(H) \leq 2$ satisfies $\chi(H) \leq 4$. This disproves a well-known conjecture. Our…

The Hadwiger number h(G) of a graph G is the maximum size of a complete minor of G. Hadwiger's Conjecture states that h(G) >= \chi(G). Since \chi(G) \alpha(G) >= |V(G)|, Hadwiger's Conjecture implies that \alpha(G) h(G) >= |V(G)|. We show…

For every graph $G$, let $\alpha(G)$ denote its independence number. What is the minimum of the maximum degree of an induced subgraph of $G$ with $\alpha(G)+1$ vertices? We study this question for the $n$-dimensional Hamming graph over an…

Let $i_t(G)$ be the number of independent sets of size $t$ in a graph $G$. Engbers and Galvin asked how large $i_t(G)$ could be in graphs with minimum degree at least $\delta$. They further conjectured that when $n\geq 2\delta$ and $t\geq…

Hadwiger's conjecture asserts that if a simple graph $G$ has no $K_{t+1}$ minor, then its vertex set $V(G)$ can be partitioned into $t$ stable sets. This is still open, but we prove under the same hypotheses that $V(G)$ can be partitioned…

Let $G$ be a simple connected graph of size $m$. Let $A$ be the adjacency matrix of $G$ and let $\rho(G)$ be the spectral radius of $G$. A graph is said to be $H$-free if it does not contain a subgraph isomorphic to $H$. Let $H(\ell,3)$ be…

One way to certify that a graph does not contain an induced cycle of length six is to provide a partition of its vertex set into (i) a stable set, and (ii) a graph containing no stable set of size three and no induced matching of size two.…

Let $\hom(G)$ denote the size of the largest clique or independent set of a graph $G$. In 2007, Bukh and Sudakov proved that every $n$-vertex graph $G$ with $\hom(G) = O(\log n)$ contains an induced subgraph with $\Omega(n^{1/2})$ distinct…

Given two graphs $H_1$ and $H_2$, a graph is $(H_1,\,H_2)$-free if it contains no induced subgraph isomorphic to $H_1$ or $H_2$. For a positive integer $t$, $P_t$ is the chordless path on $t$ vertices. A paraglider is the graph that…

An immersion of a graph $H$ in a graph $G$ is a minimal subgraph $I$ of $G$ for which there is an injection ${{\rm i}} \colon V(H) \to V(I)$ and a set of edge-disjoint paths $\{P_e: e \in E(H)\}$ in $I$ such that the end vertices of…

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…