English

Perfect Forests in Graphs and Their Extensions

Combinatorics 2021-07-09 v2 Discrete Mathematics Data Structures and Algorithms

Abstract

Let GG be a graph on nn vertices. For i{0,1}i\in \{0,1\} and a connected graph GG, a spanning forest FF of GG is called an ii-perfect forest if every tree in FF is an induced subgraph of GG and exactly ii vertices of FF have even degree (including zero). A ii-perfect forest of GG is proper if it has no vertices of degree zero. Scott (2001) showed that every connected graph with even number of vertices contains a (proper) 0-perfect forest. We prove that one can find a 0-perfect forest with minimum number of edges in polynomial time, but it is NP-hard to obtain a 0-perfect forest with maximum number of edges. Moreover, we show that to decide whether GG has a 0-perfect forest with at least V(G)/2+k|V(G)|/2+k edges, where kk is the parameter, is W[1]-hard. We also prove that for a prescribed edge ee of G,G, it is NP-hard to obtain a 0-perfect forest containing e,e, but one can decide if there existsa 0-perfect forest not containing ee in polynomial time. It is easy to see that every graph with odd number of vertices has a 1-perfect forest. It is not the case for proper 1-perfect forests. We give a characterization of when a connected graph has a proper 1-perfect forest.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2105.00254,
  title  = {Perfect Forests in Graphs and Their Extensions},
  author = {Gregory Gutin and Anders Yeo},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2105.00254},
  year   = {2021}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-24T01:41:51.941Z