Guantao Chen, Mikhail Lavrov, Yuying Ma, Jennifer Vandenbussche, Hein van der Holst
Let $G$ be a simple graph. The $k$-th neighborhood of a vertex subset $S \subseteq V(G)$, denoted $Λ^k(S)$, is the set of vertices that are adjacent to at least $k$ vertices in $S$. The $k$-th binding number $β^k(G)$ is defined as the minimum ratio $|Λ^k(S)|/|S|$ over all subsets $S \subseteq V(G)$ with $|S| \ge k$ and $Λ^k(S) \ne V(G)$. This parameter generalizes the classical binding number introduced by Woodall. Andersen showed that the condition $β^1(G) \ge 1$ does not guarantee the existence of a $1$-factor in $G$, while Barát et al. proved that $β^2(G) \ge 1$ suffices for the existence of a $2$-factor. In this paper, we extend this result to general $k \ge 2$ by showing that any graph $G$ with even $k|V(G)|$ and $β^k(G) \ge 1$ contains a $k$-factor. Moreover, if $G$ is additionally a split graph of even order, then it admits a $(k+1)$-factor. We also prove that any graph $G$ with $β^k(G) \ge 1$ contains at least $k-1$ disjoint perfect or near-perfect matchings. Finally, for any bipartite graph $G$ with bipartition $(X, Y)$, we introduce an analogue of the $k$-th binding number and show that, under the condition $β^k(G, X) \ge 1$, the graph admits $k$ disjoint matchings, each covering $X$.
Daniel W. Cranston, Nitish Korula, Timothy D. LeSaulnier, Kevin Milans, Christopher Stocker, Jennifer Vandenbussche, Douglas B. West
An {\it overlap representation} of a graph $G$ assigns sets to vertices so that vertices are adjacent if and only if their assigned sets intersect with neither containing the other. The {\it overlap number} $\ol(G)$ (introduced by Rosgen) is the minimum size of the union of the sets in such a representation. We prove the following: (1) An optimal overlap representation of a tree can be produced in linear time, and its size is the number of vertices in the largest subtree in which the neighbor of any leaf has degree 2. (2) If $δ(G)\ge 2$ and $G\ne K_3$, then $\ol(G)\le |E(G)|-1$, with equality when $G$ is connected and triangle-free and has no star-cutset. (3) If $G$ is an $n$-vertex plane graph with $n\ge5$, then $\ol(G)\le 2n-5$, with equality when every face has length 4 and there is no star-cutset. (4) If $G$ is an $n$-vertex graph with $n\ge 14$, then $\ol(G)\le \floor{n^2/4-n/2-1}$, and this is sharp (for even $n$, equality holds when $G$ arises from $K_{n/2,n/2}$ by deleting a perfect matching).
Heather Hoskins, Runrun Liu, Jennifer Vandenbussche, Gexin Yu
For a set of nonnegative integers $c_1, \ldots, c_k$, a $(c_1, c_2,\ldots, c_k)$-coloring of a graph $G$ is a partition of $V(G)$ into $V_1, \ldots, V_k$ such that for every $i$, $1\le i\le k, G[V_i]$ has maximum degree at most $c_i$. We prove that all planar graphs without 4-cycles and no less than two edges between triangles are $(2,0,0)$-colorable.
Mikhail Lavrov, Jennifer Vandenbussche
Let $G$ be a bipartite graph with bipartition $(X,Y)$. Inspired by a hypergraph problem, we seek an upper bound on the number of disjoint paths needed to cover all the vertices of $X$. We conjecture that a Hall-type sufficient condition holds based on the maximum value of $|S|-|\mathsfΛ(S)|$, where $S\subseteq X$ and $\mathsfΛ(S)$ is the set of all vertices in $Y$ with at least two neighbors in $S$. This condition is also a necessary one for a hereditary version of the problem, where we delete vertices from $X$ and try to cover the remaining vertices by disjoint paths. The conjecture holds when $G$ is a forest, has maximum degree $3$, or is regular with high girth, and we prove those results in this paper.
Armen S. Asratian, Carl Johan Casselgren, Jennifer Vandenbussche, Douglas B. West
An interval coloring of a graph G is a proper coloring of E(G) by positive integers such that the colors on the edges incident to any vertex are consecutive. A (3,4)-biregular bigraph is a bipartite graph in which each vertex of one part has degree 3 and each vertex of the other has degree 4; it is unknown whether these all have interval colorings. We prove that G has an interval coloring using 6 colors when G is a (3,4)-biregular bigraph having a spanning subgraph whose components are paths with endpoints at 3-valent vertices and lengths in {2,4,6,8}. We provide sufficient conditions for the existence of such a subgraph.
Guantao Chen, Mikhail Lavrov, Yuying Ma, Yimo Su, Jennifer Vandenbussche
The super-neighborhood of a vertex set $A$ in a graph $G$, denoted by $Λ^2(A)$, is the set of vertices adjacent to at least two vertices in $A$. We say that a bipartite graph $G=(X, Y)$ with $|X| \geq 2$ satisfies the double Hall property (with respect to $X$) if $|Λ^2(A)| \geq |A|$ for any subset $A \subseteq X$ with $|A| \geq 2$. Kostochka et al. first conjectured that if a bipartite graph $G=(X, Y)$ satisfies a slightly weaker version of the double Hall property, then $G$ contains a cycle that covers all vertices of $X$. They verified their conjecture for $|X| \leq 6$. In this paper, we extend their result to $|X| = 7$. Later, Salia conjectured that every bipartite graph satisfying the double Hall property has a cycle covering all vertices of $X$. We show that Salia's conjecture is almost equivalent to a much weaker conjecture requiring vertices in $Y$ to have high degrees. By extending a result of Barát et al., we also show that Salia's conjecture holds for some graphs where the vertices of $Y$ have degree either $2$ or very high. Finally, we establish a lower bound for the maximum degree of graphs satisfying the double Hall property and present deterministic and probabilistic constructions of such graphs that approach this bound.