arXiv subjects

Deepak Rajendraprasad

Publications and source records attributed to Deepak Rajendraprasad.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

On Graphs whose Eternal Vertex Cover Number and Vertex Cover Number Coincide

The eternal vertex cover problem is a variant of the classical vertex cover problem where a set of guards on the vertices have to be dynamically reconfigured from one vertex cover to another in every round of an attacker-defender game. The minimum number of guards required to protect a graph $G$ from an infinite sequence of attacks is the eternal vertex cover number of $G$, denoted by $evc(G)$. It is known that, given a graph $G$ and an integer $k$, checking whether $evc(G) \le k$ is NP-hard. However, it is unknown whether this problem is in NP or not. Precise value of eternal vertex cover number is known only for certain very basic graph classes like trees, cycles and grids. For any graph $G$, it is known that $mvc(G) \le evc(G) \le 2 mvc(G)$, where $mvc(G)$ is the minimum vertex cover number of $G$. Though a characterization is known for graphs for which $evc(G) = 2 mvc(G)$, a characterization of graphs for which $evc(G) = mvc(G)$ remained open. Here, we achieve such a characterization for a class of graphs that includes chordal graphs and internally triangulated planar graphs. For some graph classes including biconnected chordal graphs, our characterization leads to a polynomial time algorithm to precisely determine $evc(G)$ and to determine a safe strategy of guard movement in each round of the game with $evc(G)$ guards. The characterization also leads to NP-completeness results for the eternal vertex cover problem for some graph classes including biconnected internally triangulated planar graphs. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first NP-completeness results known for the problem for any graph class.

cs.DM↗

arXiv2016

Track number of line graphs

The track number $τ(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the minimum number of interval graphs whose union is $G$. We show that the track number of the line graph $L(G)$ of a triangle-free graph $G$ is at least $\lg \lg χ(G) + 1$, where $χ(G)$ is the chromatic number of $G$. Using this lower bound and two classical Ramsey-theoretic results from literature, we answer two questions posed by Milans, Stolee, and West [J. Combinatorics, 2015] (MSW15). First we show that the track number $τ(L(K_n))$ of the line graph of the complete graphs $K_n$ is at least $\lg\lg n - o(1)$. This is asymptotically tight and it improves the bound of $Ω(\lg\lg n/ \lg\lg\lg n)$ in MSW15. Next we show that for a family of graphs $\mathcal{G}$, $\{τ(L(G)):G \in \mathcal{G}\}$ is bounded if and only if $\{χ(G):G \in \mathcal{G}\}$ is bounded. This affirms a conjecture in MSW15. All our lower bounds apply even if one enlarges the covering family from the family of interval graphs to the family of chordal graphs.

math.CO↗

arXiv2015

Boundaries of Hypertrees, and Hamiltonian Cycles in Simplicial Complexes

A $d$-hypertree on $[n]$ is a maximal acyclic $d$-dimensional simplicial complex with full $(d-1)$-skeleton on the vertex set $[n]$. Alternatively, in the language of algebraic topology, it is a minimal $d$-dimensional simplicial complex $T$ (assuming full $(d-1)$-skeleton) such that $\tilde{H}_{d-1}(T;\mathbb{F})=0$. The $d$-hypertrees are a basic object in combinatorial theory of simplicial complexes. They have been studied; and yet, many of their structural aspects remain poorly understood. In this paper we study the boundaries $\partial_d T$ of $d$-hypertrees, and the fundamental $d$-cycles defined by them. Our findings include: 1. A full characterization of $\partial_d T$ over $\mathbb{F}_2$ for $d \leq 2$, and some partial results for $d \geq 3$. 2. Lower bounds on the maximum size of a largest simple $d$-cycle on $[n]$. In particular, for $d=2$, we construct a {\em Hamiltonian $d$-cycle} $H$ on $[n]$, i.e., a simple $d$-cycle of size ${{n-1} \choose d} + 1$. For $d\geq 3$, we construct a simple $d$-cycle of size ${{n-1} \choose d} - O(n^{d-2})$. 3. Observing that the maximum of the expected distance between two vertices chosen uniformly at random in a tree ($1$-hypertree) on $[n]$ is at most $\thicksim n/3$, attained on Hamiltonian paths, we ask a similar question about $d$-hypertrees. "How large can be the {\em average} size of a fundamental cycle of a $d$-hypertree $T$ (i.e., the expected size of the dependency created by adding a $d$-simplex on $[n]$, chosen uniformly at random, to $T$)?" For every $d \in \mathbb{N}$, we construct an infinite family of $d$-hypertrees $\{T\}$ with the average size of a fundamental cycle at least $c_d\, |T| \,=\, c_d\,{n-1 \choose d}$, where $c_d$ is a constant depending on the dimension $d$ alone.

math.CO↗

arXiv2014

Separation dimension of bounded degree graphs

The 'separation dimension' of a graph $G$ is the smallest natural number $k$ for which the vertices of $G$ can be embedded in $\mathbb{R}^k$ such that any pair of disjoint edges in $G$ can be separated by a hyperplane normal to one of the axes. Equivalently, it is the smallest possible cardinality of a family $\mathcal{F}$ of total orders of the vertices of $G$ such that for any two disjoint edges of $G$, there exists at least one total order in $\mathcal{F}$ in which all the vertices in one edge precede those in the other. In general, the maximum separation dimension of a graph on $n$ vertices is $Θ(\log n)$. In this article, we focus on bounded degree graphs and show that the separation dimension of a graph with maximum degree $d$ is at most $2^{9log^{\star} d} d$. We also demonstrate that the above bound is nearly tight by showing that, for every $d$, almost all $d$-regular graphs have separation dimension at least $\lceil d/2\rceil$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2014

Domination in designs

We commence the study of domination in the incidence graphs of combinatorial designs. Let $D$ be a combinatorial design and denote by $γ(D)$ the domination number of the incidence (Levy) graph of $D$. We obtain a number of results about the domination numbers of various kinds of designs. For instance, a finite projective plane of order $n$, which is a symmetric $(n^{2}+n+1,n+1,1)$-design, has $γ=2n$. %We also show that for any symmetric $(v,k,λ)$-design it holds that $γ\leq 2k$. We study at depth the domination numbers of Steiner systems and in particular of Steiner triple systems. We show that a $STS(v)$ has $γ\geq \frac{2}{3}v-1$ and also obtain a number of upper bounds. The tantalizing conjecture that all Steiner triple systems on $v$ vertices have the same domination number is proposed and is verified up to $v \leq 15$. The structure of minimal dominating sets is also investigated, both for its own sake and as a tool in deriving lower bounds on $γ$. Finally, a number of open questions are proposed.

math.CO↗

arXiv2014

Upper bound on cubicity in terms of boxicity for graphs of low chromatic number

The boxicity (respectively cubicity) of a graph $G$ is the minimum non-negative integer $k$, such that $G$ can be represented as an intersection graph of axis-parallel $k$-dimensional boxes (respectively $k$-dimensional unit cubes) and is denoted by $box(G)$ (respectively $cub(G)$). It was shown by Adiga and Chandran (Journal of Graph Theory, 65(4), 2010) that for any graph $G$, $cub(G) \le$ box$(G) \left \lceil \log_2 α\right \rceil$, where $α= α(G)$ is the cardinality of the maximum independent set in $G$. In this note we show that $cub(G) \le 2 \left \lceil \log_2 χ(G) \right \rceil box(G) + χ(G) \left \lceil \log_2 α(G) \right \rceil $. In general, this result can provide a much better upper bound than that of Adiga and Chandran for graph classes with bounded chromatic number. For example, for bipartite graphs we get, $cub(G) \le 2 (box(G) + \left \lceil \log_2 α(G) \right \rceil )$. Moreover we show that for every positive integer $k$, there exist graphs with chromatic number $k$, such that for every $ε> 0$, the value given by our upper bound is at most $(1+ε)$ times their cubicity. Thus, our upper bound is almost tight.

math.CO↗

arXiv2014

Boxicity and separation dimension

A family $\mathcal{F}$ of permutations of the vertices of a hypergraph $H$ is called 'pairwise suitable' for $H$ if, for every pair of disjoint edges in $H$, there exists a permutation in $\mathcal{F}$ in which all the vertices in one edge precede those in the other. The cardinality of a smallest such family of permutations for $H$ is called the 'separation dimension' of $H$ and is denoted by $π(H)$. Equivalently, $π(H)$ is the smallest natural number $k$ so that the vertices of $H$ can be embedded in $\mathbb{R}^k$ such that any two disjoint edges of $H$ can be separated by a hyperplane normal to one of the axes. We show that the separation dimension of a hypergraph $H$ is equal to the 'boxicity' of the line graph of $H$. This connection helps us in borrowing results and techniques from the extensive literature on boxicity to study the concept of separation dimension.

math.CO↗

arXiv2014

Rainbow Colouring of Split Graphs

A rainbow path in an edge coloured graph is a path in which no two edges are coloured the same. A rainbow colouring of a connected graph G is a colouring of the edges of G such that every pair of vertices in G is connected by at least one rainbow path. The minimum number of colours required to rainbow colour G is called its rainbow connection number. Between them, Chakraborty et al. [J. Comb. Optim., 2011] and Ananth et al. [FSTTCS, 2012] have shown that for every integer k, k \geq 2, it is NP-complete to decide whether a given graph can be rainbow coloured using k colours. A split graph is a graph whose vertex set can be partitioned into a clique and an independent set. Chandran and Rajendraprasad have shown that the problem of deciding whether a given split graph G can be rainbow coloured using 3 colours is NP-complete and further have described a linear time algorithm to rainbow colour any split graph using at most one colour more than the optimum [COCOON, 2012]. In this article, we settle the computational complexity of the problem on split graphs and thereby discover an interesting dichotomy. Specifically, we show that the problem of deciding whether a given split graph can be rainbow coloured using k colours is NP-complete for k \in {2,3}, but can be solved in polynomial time for all other values of k.

cs.DM↗

arXiv2014

Separation dimension of sparse graphs

The separation dimension of a graph $G$ is the smallest natural number $k$ for which the vertices of $G$ can be embedded in $\mathbb{R}^k$ such that any pair of disjoint edges in $G$ can be separated by a hyperplane normal to one of the axes. Equivalently, it is the smallest possible cardinality of a family $\mathcal{F}$ of permutations of the vertices of $G$ such that for any two disjoint edges of $G$, there exists at least one permutation in $\mathcal{F}$ in which all the vertices in one edge precede those in the other. In general, the maximum separation dimension of a graph on $n$ vertices is $Θ(\log n)$. In this article, we focus on sparse graphs and show that the maximum separation dimension of a $k$-degenerate graph on $n$ vertices is $O(k \log\log n)$ and that there exists a family of $2$-degenerate graphs with separation dimension $Ω(\log\log n)$. We also show that the separation dimension of the graph $G^{1/2}$ obtained by subdividing once every edge of another graph $G$ is at most $(1 + o(1)) \log\log χ(G)$ where $χ(G)$ is the chromatic number of the original graph.

math.CO↗

arXiv2014

Partial list colouring of certain graphs

Let $G$ be a graph on $n$ vertices and let $\mathcal{L}_k$ be an arbitrary function that assigns each vertex in $G$ a list of $k$ colours. Then $G$ is $\mathcal{L}_k$-list colourable if there exists a proper colouring of the vertices of $G$ such that every vertex is coloured with a colour from its own list. We say $G$ is $k$-choosable if for every such function $\mathcal{L}_k$, $G$ is $\mathcal{L}_k$-list colourable. The minimum $k$ such that $G$ is $k$-choosable is called the list chromatic number of $G$ and is denoted by $χ_L(G)$. Let $χ_L(G) = s$ and let $t$ be a positive integer less than $s$. The partial list colouring conjecture due to Albertson et al. \cite{albertson2000partial} states that for every $\mathcal{L}_t$ that maps the vertices of $G$ to $t$-sized lists, there always exists an induced subgraph of $G$ of size at least $\frac{tn}{s}$ that is $\mathcal{L}_t$-list colourable. In this paper we show that the partial list colouring conjecture holds true for certain classes of graphs like claw-free graphs, graphs with large chromatic number, chordless graphs, and series-parallel graphs. In the second part of the paper, we put forth a question which is a variant of the partial list colouring conjecture: does $G$ always contain an induced subgraph of size at least $\frac{tn}{s}$ that is $t$-choosable? We show that the answer to this question is not always `yes' by explicitly constructing an infinite family of $3$-choosable graphs where a largest induced $2$-choosable subgraph of each graph in the family is of size at most $\frac{5n}{8}$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2014

Approximating the Cubicity of Trees

Cubicity of a graph $G$ is the smallest dimension $d$, for which $G$ is a unit disc graph in ${\mathbb{R}}^d$, under the $l^\infty$ metric, i.e. $G$ can be represented as an intersection graph of $d$-dimensional (axis-parallel) unit hypercubes. We call such an intersection representation a $d$-dimensional cube representation of $G$. Computing cubicity is known to be inapproximable in polynomial time, within an $O(n^{1-ε})$ factor for any $ε>0$, unless NP=ZPP. In this paper, we present a randomized algorithm that runs in polynomial time and computes cube representations of trees, of dimension within a constant factor of the optimum. It is also shown that the cubicity of trees can be approximated within a constant factor in deterministic polynomial time, if the cube representation is not required to be computed. As far as we know, this is the first constant factor approximation algorithm for computing the cubicity of trees. It is not yet clear whether computing the cubicity of trees is NP-hard or not.

cs.DM↗

arXiv2014

On Additive Combinatorics of Permutations of \mathbb{Z}_n

Let $\mathbb{Z}_n$ denote the ring of integers modulo $n$. In this paper we consider two extremal problems on permutations of $\mathbb{Z}_n$, namely, the maximum size of a collection of permutations such that the sum of any two distinct permutations in the collection is again a permutation, and the maximum size of a collection of permutations such that the sum of any two distinct permutations in the collection is not a permutation. Let the sizes be denoted by $s(n)$ and $t(n)$ respectively. The case when $n$ is even is trivial in both the cases, with $s(n)=1$ and $t(n)=n!$. For $n$ odd, we prove $s(n)\geq (nϕ(n))/2^k$ where $k$ is the number of distinct prime divisors of $n$. When $n$ is an odd prime we prove $s(n)\leq \frac{e^2}π n ((n-1)/e)^\frac{n-1}{2}$. For the second problem, we prove $2^{(n-1)/2}.(\frac{n-1}{2})!\leq t(n)\leq 2^k.(n-1)!/ϕ(n)$ when $n$ is odd.

math.CO↗

arXiv2014

2-connecting Outerplanar Graphs without Blowing Up the Pathwidth

Given a connected outerplanar graph G of pathwidth p, we give an algorithm to add edges to G to get a supergraph of G, which is 2-vertex-connected, outerplanar and of pathwidth O(p). This settles an open problem raised by Biedl, in the context of computing minimum height planar straight line drawings of outerplanar graphs, with their vertices placed on a two dimensional grid. In conjunction with the result of this paper, the constant factor approximation algorithm for this problem obtained by Biedl for 2-vertex-connected outerplanar graphs will work for all outer planar graphs.

cs.DM↗

arXiv2013

Boxicity and Cubicity of Product Graphs

The 'boxicity' ('cubicity') of a graph G is the minimum natural number k such that G can be represented as an intersection graph of axis-parallel rectangular boxes (axis-parallel unit cubes) in $R^k$. In this article, we give estimates on the boxicity and the cubicity of Cartesian, strong and direct products of graphs in terms of invariants of the component graphs. In particular, we study the growth, as a function of $d$, of the boxicity and the cubicity of the $d$-th power of a graph with respect to the three products. Among others, we show a surprising result that the boxicity and the cubicity of the $d$-th Cartesian power of any given finite graph is in $O(\log d / \log\log d)$ and $θ(d / \log d)$, respectively. On the other hand, we show that there cannot exist any sublinear bound on the growth of the boxicity of powers of a general graph with respect to strong and direct products.

math.CO↗

arXiv2012

Pairwise Suitable Family of Permutations and Boxicity

A family F of permutations of the vertices of a hypergraph H is called "pairwise suitable" for H if, for every pair of disjoint edges in H, there exists a permutation in F in which all the vertices in one edge precede those in the other. The cardinality of a smallest such family of permutations for H is called the "separation dimension" of H and is denoted by π(H). Equivalently, π(H) is the smallest natural number k so that the vertices of H can be embedded in R^k such that any two disjoint edges of H can be separated by a hyperplane normal to one of the axes. We show that the separation dimension of a hypergraph H is equal to the "boxicity" of the line graph of H. This connection helps us in borrowing results and techniques from the extensive literature on boxicity to study the concept of separation dimension.

math.CO↗

arXiv2012

Rainbow Connection Number and Radius

The rainbow connection number, rc(G), of a connected graph G is the minimum number of colours needed to colour its edges, so that every pair of its vertices is connected by at least one path in which no two edges are coloured the same. In this note we show that for every bridgeless graph G with radius r, rc(G) <= r(r + 2). We demonstrate that this bound is the best possible for rc(G) as a function of r, not just for bridgeless graphs, but also for graphs of any stronger connectivity. It may be noted that for a general 1-connected graph G, rc(G) can be arbitrarily larger than its radius (Star graph for instance). We further show that for every bridgeless graph G with radius r and chordality (size of a largest induced cycle) k, rc(G) <= rk. It is known that computing rc(G) is NP-Hard [Chakraborty et al., 2009]. Here, we present a (r+3)-factor approximation algorithm which runs in O(nm) time and a (d+3)-factor approximation algorithm which runs in O(dm) time to rainbow colour any connected graph G on n vertices, with m edges, diameter d and radius r.

math.CO↗

arXiv2012

Product Dimension of Forests and Bounded Treewidth Graphs

The product dimension of a graph G is defined as the minimum natural number l such that G is an induced subgraph of a direct product of l complete graphs. In this paper we study the product dimension of forests, bounded treewidth graphs and k-degenerate graphs. We show that every forest on n vertices has a product dimension at most 1.441logn+3. This improves the best known upper bound of 3logn for the same due to Poljak and Pultr. The technique used in arriving at the above bound is extended and combined with a result on existence of orthogonal Latin squares to show that every graph on n vertices with a treewidth at most t has a product dimension at most (t+2)(logn+1). We also show that every k-degenerate graph on n vertices has a product dimension at most \ceil{8.317klogn}+1. This improves the upper bound of 32klogn for the same by Eaton and Rodl.

math.CO↗

arXiv2012

Rainbow Colouring of Split and Threshold Graphs

A rainbow colouring of a connected graph is a colouring of the edges of the graph, such that every pair of vertices is connected by at least one path in which no two edges are coloured the same. Such a colouring using minimum possible number of colours is called an optimal rainbow colouring, and the minimum number of colours required is called the rainbow connection number of the graph. In this article, we show the following: 1. The problem of deciding whether a graph can be rainbow coloured using 3 colours remains NP-complete even when restricted to the class of split graphs. However, any split graph can be rainbow coloured in linear time using at most one more colour than the optimum. 2. For every integer k larger than 2, the problem of deciding whether a graph can be rainbow coloured using k colours remains NP-complete even when restricted to the class of chordal graphs. 3. For every positive integer k, threshold graphs with rainbow connection number k can be characterised based on their degree sequence alone. Further, we can optimally rainbow colour a threshold graph in linear time.

cs.DM↗