Related papers: Tree independence number V. Walls and claws

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…

For a graph $G$, let $t(G)$ denote the maximum number of vertices in an induced subgraph of $G$ that is a tree. Further, for a vertex $v\in V(G)$, let $t^v(G)$ denote the maximum number of vertices in an induced subgraph of $G$ that is a…

Given a graph G and an integer k, the objective of the $\Pi$-Contraction problem is to check whether there exists at most k edges in G such that contracting them in G results in a graph satisfying the property $\Pi$. We investigate the…

A $k$-block in a graph $G$ is a maximal set of at least $k$ vertices no two of which can be separated in $G$ by deleting fewer than $k$ vertices. The block number $\beta(G)$ of $G$ is the maximum integer $k$ for which $G$ contains a…

The H-free process, for some fixed graph H, is the random graph process defined by starting with an empty graph on n vertices and then adding edges one at a time, chosen uniformly at random subject to the constraint that no H subgraph is…

Given a family of graphs $\mathcal{H}$, a graph $G$ is $\mathcal{H}$-free if any subset of $V(G)$ does not induce a subgraph of $G$ that is isomorphic to any graph in $\mathcal{H}$. We present sufficient and necessary conditions for a graph…

Let $G$ be a graph and $r \ge 1$. A vertex subset is $r$-independent if every connected component of its induced subgraph has size at most $r$. The family of all such subsets forms a simplicial complex, the $r$-independence complex…

Let $i_t(G)$ denote the number of independent sets of size $t$ in a graph $G$. Levit and Mandrescu have conjectured that for all bipartite $G$ the sequence $(i_t(G))_{t \geq 0}$ (the {\em independent set sequence} of $G$) is unimodal. We…

Unlike minors, the induced subgraph obstructions to bounded treewidth come in a large variety, including, for every $t\geq 1$, the $t$-basic obstructions: the graphs $K_{t+1}$ and $K_{t,t}$, along with the subdivisions of the $t$-by-$t$…

As usual, $P_n$ ($n \geq 1$) denotes the path on $n$ vertices, and $C_n$ ($n \geq 3$) denotes the cycle on $n$ vertices. For a family $\mathcal{H}$ of graphs, we say that a graph $G$ is $\mathcal{H}$-free if no induced subgraph of $G$ is…

Given a graph $G$, denote by $h(G)$ the smallest size of a subset of $V(G)$ which intersects every maximum independent set of $G$. We prove that any graph $G$ without induced matching of size $t$ satisfies $h(G)\le \omega(G)^{3t-3+o(1)}$.…

A well-known result of Ajtai et al. from 1982 states that every $k$-graph $H$ on $n$ vertices, with girth at least five, and average degree $t^{k-1}$ contains an independent set of size $c n (\log t)^{1/(k-1)}/t$ for some $c>0$. In this…

We prove a number of results related to the computational complexity of recognizing well-covered graphs. Let $k$ and $s$ be positive integers and let $G$ be a graph. Then $G$ is said - $\mathbf{W_k}$ if for any $k$ pairwise disjoint…

In the Maximum Independent Set problem we are asked to find a set of pairwise nonadjacent vertices in a given graph with the maximum possible cardinality. In general graphs, this classical problem is known to be NP-hard and hard to…

Let $G$ be a graph. A set $S \subseteq V(G)$ is independent if its elements are pairwise non-adjacent. A vertex $v \in V(G)$ is shedding if for every independent set $S \subseteq V(G) \setminus N[v]$ there exists $u \in N(v)$ such that $S…

This paper studies $k$-claw-free graphs, exploring the connection between an extremal combinatorics question and the power of a convex program in approximating the maximum-weight independent set in this graph class. For the extremal…

We prove that every $n$-vertex $K_t$-minor-free graph $G$ of maximum degree $\Delta$ has a set $F$ of $O(t^2(\log t)^{1/4}\sqrt{\Delta n})$ edges such that every component of $G - F$ has at most $n/2$ vertices. This is best possible up to…

Subdividing an edge $uv$ in a graph replaces it by a path $u w v$ with one new vertex. For a graph $H$, the \textsc{$H$-free Subdivision} problem asks whether, given a graph $G$ and an integer $k$, one can destroy all induced copies of $H$…

We describe an infinite family of graphs $G_n$, where $G_n$ has $n$ vertices, independence number at least $n/4$, and no set of less than $\sqrt{n}/2$ vertices intersects all its maximum independent sets. This is motivated by a question of…

The isolation number of a graph $G$ (also called the vertex-edge domination number of $G$), denoted by $\iota(G)$, is the size of a smallest subset $D$ of the vertex set $V(G)$ of $G$ such that $G-N[D]$ (the graph obtained by deleting the…