Related papers: The Path-Extremal Conjecture for Zero Forcing: Dis…
In 1989, Zehavi and Itai conjectured that every $k$-connected graph contains $k$ independent spanning trees rooted at any prescribed vertex $r$. That is, for each vertex $v$, the unique $r$-$v$ paths within these $k$ spanning trees are…
Zero forcing is an iterative graph coloring process, where given a set of initially colored vertices, a colored vertex with a single uncolored neighbor causes that neighbor to become colored. A zero forcing set is a set of initially colored…
The implicit representation conjecture concerns hereditary families of graphs. Given a graph in such a family, we want to assign some string of bits to each vertex in such a way that we can recover the information about whether 2 vertices…
We give an algorithm that finds a zero forcing set which approximates the optimal size by a factor of $\text{pw}(G)+1$, where $\text{pw}(G)$ is the pathwidth of $G$. Starting from a path decomposition, the algorithm runs in $O(nm)$ time,…
Forbidden characterizations may sometimes be the most natural way to describe families of graphs, and yet these characterizations are usually very hard to exploit for enumerative purposes. By building on the work of Gioan and Paul (2012)…
We study the effect of external forcing on the saddle-node bifurcation pattern of interval maps. By replacing fixed points of unperturbed maps by invariant graphs, we obtain direct analogues to the classical result both for random forcing…
The twin-width of a graph measures its distance to co-graphs and generalizes classical width concepts such as tree-width or rank-width. Since its introduction in 2020 (Bonnet et. al. 2020), a mass of new results has appeared relating twin…
Extremal problems related to the enumeration of graph substructures, such as independent sets, matchings, and induced matchings, have become a prominent area of research with the advancement of graph theory. A subset of vertices is called a…
A directed graph $G=(V,E)$ is {\it strongly pseudo transitive} if there is a partition $\{A,E-A\}$ of $E$ so that graphs $G_1=(V,A)$ and $G_2=(V,E-A)$ are transitive, and additionally, if $ab\in A$ and $bc\in E $ implies that $ac\in E$. A…
We prove three conjectures regarding the maximization of spectral invariants over certain families of graphs. Our most difficult result is that the join of $P_2$ and $P_{n-2}$ is the unique graph of maximum spectral radius over all planar…
Zero forcing is a binary coloring game on a graph where a set of filled vertices can force non-filled vertices to become filled following a color change rule. In 2008, the zero forcing number of a graph was shown to be an upper bound on its…
Zero forcing is an iterative graph coloring process whereby a colored vertex with a single uncolored neighbor forces that neighbor to be colored. It is NP-hard to find a minimum zero forcing set - a smallest set of initially colored…
This article studies the \emph{$k$-forcing number} for oriented graphs, generalizing both the \emph{zero forcing number} for directed graphs and the $k$-forcing number for simple graphs. In particular, given a simple graph $G$, we introduce…
We examine the possibility of approximating Maximum Vertex-Disjoint Shortest Paths. In this problem, the input is an edge-weighted (directed or undirected) $n$-vertex graph $G$ along with $k$ terminal pairs…
A subset $S$ of initially infected vertices of a graph $G$ is called forcing if we can infect the entire graph by iteratively applying the following process. At each step, any infected vertex which has a unique uninfected neighbour, infects…
The 3-decomposition conjecture is wide open. It asserts that every finite connected cubic graph can be decomposed into a spanning tree, a disjoint union of cycles, and a matching. We show that every such decomposition is derived from a…
For a graph class ${\cal H}$, the graph parameters elimination distance to ${\cal H}$ (denoted by ${\bf ed}_{\cal H}$) [Bulian and Dawar, Algorithmica, 2016], and ${\cal H}$-treewidth (denoted by ${\bf tw}_{\cal H}$) [Eiben et al. JCSS,…
In 2018, a fort of a graph was introduced as a non-empty subset of vertices in which no vertex outside of the set has exactly one neighbor in the set. Since then, forts have been used to characterize zero forcing sets, model the zero…
Given any graph $G$, the (adjacency) spread of $G$ is the maximum absolute difference between any two eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix of $G$. In this paper, we resolve a pair of 20-year-old conjectures of Gregory, Hershkowitz, and…
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…