Related papers: On the independent set polynomial of graphs and cl…

It is known from the work of Shearer (1985) (and also Scott and Sokal (2005)) that the independence polynomial $Z_G(\lambda)$ of a graph $G$ of maximum degree at most $d+1$ does not vanish provided that $\vert{\lambda}\vert \leq…

We initiate the study of a multivariate graph polynomial $\Phi_G(x,y,z)$ that interpolates between classical counting polynomials for matchings and for cycle structures arising in the Harary--Sachs expansion of the characteristic…

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…

Recently, Davies, Jenssen, Perkins, and Roberts gave a very nice proof of the result (due, in various parts, to Kahn, Galvin-Tetali, and Zhao) that the independence polynomial of a $d$-regular graph is maximized by disjoint copies of…

The zero forcing number of a simple graph, written $Z(G)$, is a NP-hard graph invariant which is the result of the zero forcing color change rule. This graph invariant has been heavily studied by linear algebraists, physicists, and graph…

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…

Generalising the Heilman-Lieb Theorem from statistical physics, Chudnovsky and Seymour [J. Combin. Theory Ser. B, 97(3):350--357] showed that the univariate independence polynomial of any claw-free graph has all of its zeros on the negative…

We study the class of independence complexes of claw-free graphs. The main theorem give good bounds on the connectivity of these complexes, given bounds for a few subcomplexes of the same class. Two applications are presented. Firstly, we…

The independence polynomial of a graph $G$ is the generating polynomial corresponding to its independent sets of different sizes. More formally, if $a_k(G)$ denotes the number of independent sets of $G$ of size $k$ then \[I(G,z) \as…

Given $d>0$ and a positive integer $n$, let $G$ be a triangle-free graph on $n$ vertices with average degree $d$. With an elegant induction, Shearer (1983) tightened a seminal result of Ajtai, Koml\'os and Szemer\'edi (1980/1981) by proving…

We study the zero sets of the independence polynomial on recursive sequences of graphs. We prove that for a maximally independent starting graph and a stable and expanding recursion algorithm, the zeros of the independence polynomial are…

We introduce binomial edge ideals attached to a simple graph $G$ and study their algebraic properties. We characterize those graphs for which the quadratic generators form a Gr\"obner basis in a lexicographic order induced by a vertex…

The independence gap of a graph was introduced by Ekim et al. (2018) as a measure of how far a graph is from being well-covered. It is defined as the difference between the maximum and minimum size of a maximal independent set. We…

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…

A graph $A$ is "apex" if $A-z$ is planar for some vertex $z\in V(A)$. Eppstein [Algorithmica, 2000] showed that for a minor-closed class $\mathcal{G}$, the graphs in $\mathcal{G}$ with bounded radius have bounded treewidth if and only if…

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…

We obtain new lower bounds for the independence number of $K_r$-free graphs and linear $k$-uniform hypergraphs in terms of the degree sequence. This answers some old questions raised by Caro and Tuza \cite{CT91}. Our proof technique is an…

We prove the following local strengthening of Shearer's classic bound on the independence number of triangle-free graphs: For every triangle-free graph $G$ there exists a probability distribution on its independent sets such that every…

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 goal of this paper is to accurately describe the maximal zero-free region of the independence polynomial for graphs of bounded degree, for large degree bounds. In previous work with de Boer, Guerini and Regts it was demonstrated that…