Related papers: Independent sets in association schemes

For a graph G and integer r \geq 1 we denote the family of independent r-sets of V(G) by I^{(r)}(G). A graph G is said to be r-EKR if no intersecting subfamily of I^{(r)}(G) is larger than the largest such family all of whose members…

We prove an upper bound for the independence number of a graph in terms of the largest Laplacian eigenvalue, and of a certain induced subgraph. Our bound is a refinement of a well-known Hoffman-type bound.

We classify the connected graphs with precisely three distinct eigenvalues and second largest eigenvalue at most 1.

A set $S\subseteq V$ is \textit{independent} in a graph $G=\left( V,E\right) $ if no two vertices from $S$ are adjacent. The \textit{independence number} $\alpha(G)$ is the cardinality of a maximum independent set, while $\mu(G)$ is the…

For graphs $G$ and $H$, a homomorphism from $G$ to $H$, or $H$-coloring of $G$, is a map from the vertices of $G$ to the vertices of $H$ that preserves adjacency. When $H$ is composed of an edge with one looped endvertex, an $H$-coloring of…

We examine the Maximum Independent Set Problem in an undirected graph. The main result is that this problem can be considered as the solving the same problem in a subclass of the weighted normal twin-orthogonal graphs. The problem is…

Let $\mathcal{G}$ be the set of simple graphs (or multigraphs) $G$ such that for each $G \in \mathcal{G}$ there exists at least two non-empty disjoint proper subsets $V_{1},V_{2}\subseteq V(G)$ satisfying $V(G)\setminus(V_{1} \cup…

In this paper, we study the average size of independent (vertex) sets of a graph. This invariant can be regarded as the logarithmic derivative of the independence polynomial evaluated at $1$. We are specifically concerned with extremal…

For constant $r$ and arbitrary $n$, it was known that in the graph $K_r^n$ any independent set of size close to the maximum is close to some independent set of maximum size. We prove that this statement holds for arbitrary $r$ and $n$.

We consider graphs on monomials in $n$ variables of a fixed degree $d$ where two monomials are adjacent if and only if their least common multiple has degree $d+1$. We prove that when $n = 3$ and $d$ is divisible by $3$ as well as when…

A set of edges $T$ in a graph $G$ is triangle-independent if $T$ contains at most one edge from each triangle in $G$. Let $\alpha_1(G)$ denote the maximum size of the triangle-independent set in $G$, and let $\tau_B(G)$ denote minimum size…

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…

Many extremal problems for graphs have threshold graphs as their extremal examples. For instance the current authors proved that for fixed $k\ge 1$, among all graphs on $n$ vertices with $m$ edges, some threshold graph has the fewest…

We prove a tight upper bound on the independence polynomial (and total number of independent sets) of cubic graphs of girth at least 5. The bound is achieved by unions of the Heawood graph, the point/line incidence graph of the Fano plane.…

For every real $0\leq \alpha \leq 1$, Nikiforov defined the $A_{\alpha}$-matrix of a graph $G$ as $A_{\alpha}(G)=\alpha D(G)+(1-\alpha)A(G)$, where $A(G)$ and $D(G)$ are the adjacency matrix and the degree diagonal matrix of a graph $G$,…

Nielsen proved that the maximum number of maximal independent sets (MIS's) of size $k$ in an $n$-vertex graph is asymptotic to $(n/k)^k$, with the extremal construction a disjoint union of $k$ cliques with sizes as close to $n/k$ as…

For a given positive integer t we consider graphs having maximal independent sets of precisely t distinct cardinalities and restrict our attention to those that have no vertices of degree one. In the situation when t is four or larger and…

Let alpha(G) be the cardinality of a independence set of maximum size in the graph G, while mu(G) is the size of a maximum matching. G is a Konig--Egervary graph if its order equals alpha(G) + mu(G). The set core(G) is the intersection of…

The independent set reconfiguration problem asks whether one can transform one given independent set of a graph into another, by changing vertices one by one in such a way the intermediate sets remain independent. Extremal problems on…

Given a graph $G$, the number of its vertices is represented by $n(G)$, while the number of its edges is denoted as $m(G)$. An independent set in a graph is a set of vertices where no two vertices are adjacent to each other and the size of…