arXiv subjects

M. N. Ellingham

Publications and source records attributed to M. N. Ellingham.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Duality and minors for embeddings of graphs in pseudosurfaces

Cellular embeddings of graphs in surfaces have well-defined duality and minor (edge contraction and deletion) operations that interact in a natural way. A pseudosurface is obtained from a surface (compact 2-manifold) by a finite number of identifications of finite sets of points. Points that are created by the identifications do not have a neighborhood homeomorphic to an open disk and are known as pinchpoints. Embeddings of graphs in pseudosurfaces have been considered, both implicitly and explicitly, since the 1960s. Usually the condition that all pinchpoints correspond to vertices of the graph is imposed. However, this makes it difficult to define duality and minors for pseudosurface embeddings and have these operations interact in the expected way. We define the class of pseudocellular embeddings of graphs in pseudosurfaces, which allow pinchpoints at places other than vertices, in particular in the middle of faces or edges. A subclass known as quasicellular embeddings corresponds to previous embedding models due to Deneen, Shute, and Thomborson and to Huggett and Moffatt. Pseudocellular embeddings also generalize other structures, including the edge-point ribbon graphs of Ellis-Monaghan, Kauffman, and Moffatt, and cyclically ordered graphs or cogs (also known as rigid-vertex graphs). Duality and minor operations for pseudocellular embeddings have very simple and straightforward definitions using topological quotient operations. Pseudocellular embeddings of edgeless graphs have nontrivial structure, and we define some minor operations for those that are related to `t-minor' operations on bipartite graphs. We develop a family of polynomial invariants for pseudocellular embeddings and discuss connections to other polynomial invariants.

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arXiv2026

Unavoidable substructures in large and infinite $2$-edge-connected graphs

In 1930, Ramsey proved that every large graph contains either a large clique or a large edgeless graph as an induced subgraph. It is well known that every large connected graph contains a long path, a large clique, or a large star as an induced subgraph. Recently Allred, Ding, and Oporowski presented the unavoidable large induced subgraphs for large and infinite $2$-connected graphs. The $2$-edge-connected (sometimes called bridgeless) graphs form an important class between connected graphs and $2$-connected graphs. In this paper we describe the unavoidable large induced subgraphs for large and infinite $2$-edge-connected graphs. Ubiquitous structures in $2$-edge-connected graphs that we call `chains of pinched super-clean ladders' play an important role in these descriptions. As consequences we obtain results on unavoidable large subgraphs, topological minors, minors, induced topological minors, induced minors, and Eulerian subgraphs in large and infinite $2$-edge-connected graphs. When appropriate we extend our results to multigraphs.

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arXiv2026

Forbidding the subdivided claw as a subgraph or a minor

Let $Y$ be the subdivided claw, the $7$-vertex tree obtained from a claw $K_{1,3}$ by subdividing each edge exactly once. We characterize the graphs (finite and infinite) that do not have $Y$ as a subgraph, or, equivalently, do not have $Y$ as a minor. This work was motivated by a problem involving VCD minors. A graph $H$ is a vertex contraction-deletion minor, or VCD minor, of a graph $G$ if $H$ can be obtained from $G$ by a sequence of vertex deletions or contractions of all edges incident with a single vertex. Our result is a key step in describing $K_{1,3}$-VCD-minor-free line graphs. We also characterize graphs that forbid each subtree of $Y$. We discuss the relevance of our results for Turán. numbers of trees, and pathwidth and growth constants for graphs without a particular tree as a minor.

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arXiv2025

Polynomial invariants of cyclically ordered graphs

Cyclically ordered graphs, or cogs, sit between abstract graphs and cellularly embedded graphs. They arise naturally in topological graph theory, knot theory, and mathematical biology. We develop a formal theory of cogs and establish a number of invariants of cogs. In particular we detail several ways to present cogs and detail how these descriptions can be used to construct cog invariants by adapting the matching, transition and Yamada polynomials.

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arXiv2024

A Fano framework for embeddings of graphs in surfaces

We consider seven fundamental properties of cellular embeddings of graphs in compact surfaces, and show that each property can be associated with a point of the Fano plane $F$, in such a way that allowable combinations of properties correspond to projective subspaces of $F$. This Fano framework allows us to deduce a number of implications involving the seven properties, providing new results and unifying existing ones. For each property, we provide a correspondence between embeddings with that property and an associated structure for $4$-regular graphs, using the medial graph of the graph embedding. We apply this to characterize when a graph embedding has a twisted dual with one of the properties. For each allowable combination of properties, we show that a graph embedding with these properties exists. We investigate connections between the seven properties and three weaker `Eulerian' properties. Our proofs involve parity conditions on closed walks in an extended version of the `gem' (graph-encoded map) representation of a graph embedding.

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arXiv2024

Spanning weakly even trees of graphs

Let $G$ be a graph (with multiple edges allowed) and let $T$ be a tree in $G$. We say that $T$ is $\textit{even}$ if every leaf of $T$ belongs to the same part of the bipartition of $T$, and that $T$ is $\textit{weakly even}$ if every leaf of $T$ that has maximum degree in $G$ belongs to the same part of the bipartition of $T$. We confirm two recent conjectures of Jackson and Yoshimoto by showing that every connected graph that is not a regular bipartite graph has a spanning weakly even tree.

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arXiv2024

Maximum genus embeddings of dense eulerian graphs with specified faces

We give a density condition for when, subject to a necessary parity condition, an eulerian graph or digraph may be cellularly embedded in an orientable surface so that it has exactly two faces, each bounded by an euler circuit, one of which may be specified in advance. More generally, suppose that every vertex in an $n$-vertex eulerian digraph (loops and multiple arcs allowed) has at least $(4n+2)/5$ neighbors, and specify any decomposition of the arcs into disjoint directed circuits (closed trails). We show that such a digraph has an orientable embedding in which the given circuits are facial walks and there are exactly one or two other faces. This embedding then has maximum genus relative to the given circuits being facial walks. When there is only one other face, it is necessarily bounded by an euler circuit. Consequently, if the numbers of vertices and edges have the same parity, a sufficiently dense digraph $D$ with a given directed euler circuit $T$ has an orientable embedding with exactly two faces, each bounded by an euler circuit, one of which is $T$. These results for digraphs give analogous results for graphs as immediate corollaries. The main theorem encompasses several special cases in the literature, such as when the digraph is a tournament.

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arXiv2024

Bi-eulerian embeddings of graphs and digraphs

In 1965 Edmonds showed that every eulerian graph has a bi-eulerian embedding, i.e., an embedding with exactly two faces, each bounded by an euler circuit. We refine this result by giving conditions for a graph to have a bi-eulerian embedding that is specifically orientable or nonorientable. We give connections to the maximum genus problem for directed embeddings of digraphs, in which every face is bounded by a directed circuit. Given an eulerian digraph $D$ with all vertices of degree 2 mod 4 and a directed euler circuit $T$ of $D$, we show that $D$ has an orientable bi-eulerian directed embedding with one of the faces bounded by $T$; this is a maximum genus directed embedding. This result also holds when $D$ has exactly two vertices of degree $0$ mod $4$, provided they are interlaced by $T$. More generally, if $D$ has $\ell$ vertices of degree 0 mod 4, we can find an orientable directed embedding with a face bounded by $T$ and with at most $\ell+1$ other faces. We show that given an eulerian graph $G$ and a circuit decomposition $C$ of $G$, there is an nonorientable embedding of $G$ with the elements of $C$ bounding faces and with one additional face bounded by an euler circuit, unless every block of $G$ is a cycle and $C$ is the collection of cycles of $G$. In particular, every eulerian graph that is not edgeless or a cycle has a nonorientable bi-eulerian embedding with a given euler circuit $T$ bounding one of the faces. Polynomial-time algorithms giving the specified embeddings are implicit in our proofs.

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arXiv2022

A Catalog of Enumeration Formulas for Bouquet and Dipole Embeddings Under Symmetries

Motivated by a problem arising out of DNA origami, we give a general counting framework and enumeration formulas for various cellular embeddings of bouquets and dipoles under different kinds of symmetries. Our algebraic framework can be used constructively to generate desired symmetry classes, and we use Burnside's Lemma with various symmetry groups to derive the enumeration formulas. Our results assimilate several existing formulas into this unified framework. Furthermore, we provide new formulas for bouquets with colored edges (and thus for bouquets in nonorientable surfaces) as well as for directed embeddings of directed bouquets. We also enumerate vertex-labeled dipole embeddings. Since dipole embeddings may be represented by permutations, the formulas also apply to certain equivalence classes of permutations and permutation matrices. The resulting bouquet and dipole symmetry formulas enumerate structures relevant to a wide variety of areas in addition to DNA origami, including RNA secondary structures, Feynman diagrams, and topological graph theory. For uncolored objects we catalog 58 distinct sequences, of which 43 have not, as far as we know, been described previously.

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arXiv2021

Quadrangular embeddings of complete graphs and the Even Map Color Theorem (with details)

Hartsfield and Ringel constructed orientable quadrangular embeddings of the complete graph $K_n$ for $n\equiv 5 \pmod 8$, and nonorientable ones for $n \ge 9$ and $n\equiv 1 \pmod 4$. These provide minimal quadrangulations of their underlying surfaces. We extend these results to determine, for every complete graph $K_n$, $n \ge 4$, the minimum genus, both orientable and nonorientable, for the surface in which $K_n$ has an embedding with all faces of degree at least $4$, and also for the surface in which $K_n$ has an embedding with all faces of even degree. These last embeddings provide sharpness examples for a result of Hutchinson bounding the chromatic number of graphs embedded with all faces of even degree, completing the proof of the Even Map Color Theorem. We also show that if a connected simple graph $G$ has a perfect matching and a cycle then the lexicographic product $G[K_4]$ has orientable and nonorientable quadrangular embeddings; this provides new examples of minimal quadrangulations.

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arXiv2021

Minimal quadrangulations of surfaces

A quadrangular embedding of a graph in a surface $Σ$, also known as a quadrangulation of $Σ$, is a cellular embedding in which every face is bounded by a $4$-cycle. A quadrangulation of $Σ$ is minimal if there is no quadrangular embedding of a (simple) graph of smaller order in $Σ$. In this paper we determine $n(Σ)$, the order of a minimal quadrangulation of a surface $Σ$, for all surfaces, both orientable and nonorientable. Letting $S_0$ denote the sphere and $N_2$ the Klein bottle, we prove that $n(S_0)=4, n(N_2)=6$, and $n(Σ)=\lceil (5+\sqrt{25-16χ(Σ)})/2\rceil$ for all other surfaces $Σ$, where $χ(Σ)$ is the Euler characteristic. Our proofs use a `diagonal technique', introduced by Hartsfield in 1994. We explain the general features of this method.

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arXiv2021

Maximum spectral radius of outerplanar 3-uniform hypergraphs

In this paper, we study the maximum spectral radius of outerplanar $3$-uniform hypergraphs. Given a hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$, the shadow of $\mathcal{H}$ is a graph $G$ with $V(G)= V(\mathcal{H})$ and $E(G) = \{uv: uv \in h \textrm{ for some } h\in E(\mathcal{H})\}$. A graph is \textit{outerplanar} if it can be embedded in the plane such that all its vertices lie on the outer face. A $3$-uniform hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$ is called \textit{outerplanar} if its shadow has an outerplanar embedding such that every hyperedge of $\mathcal{H}$ is the vertex set of an interior triangular face of the shadow. Cvetković and Rowlinson conjectured in 1990 that among all outerplanar graphs on $n$ vertices, the graph $K_1+ P_{n-1}$ attains the maximum spectral radius. We show a hypergraph analogue of the Cvetković-Rowlinson conjecture. In particular, we show that for sufficiently large $n$, the $n$-vertex outerplanar $3$-uniform hypergraph of maximum spectral radius is the unique $3$-uniform hypergraph whose shadow is $K_1 + P_{n-1}$.

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arXiv2019

Toughness and spanning trees in $K_4$-minor-free graphs

For an integer $k$, a $k$-tree is a tree with maximum degree at most $k$. More generally, if $f$ is an integer-valued function on vertices, an $f$-tree is a tree in which each vertex $v$ has degree at most $f(v)$. Let $c(G)$ denote the number of components of a graph $G$. We show that if $G$ is a connected $K_4$-minor-free graph and $$ c(G-S) \;\le\; \sum_{v \in S} (f(v)-1) \quad\hbox{for all $S \subseteq V(G)$ with $S \ne \emptyset$} $$ then $G$ has a spanning $f$-tree. Consequently, if $G$ is a $\frac{1}{k-1}$-tough $K_4$-minor-free graph, then $G$ has a spanning $k$-tree. These results are stronger than results for general graphs due to Win (for $k$-trees) and Ellingham, Nam and Voss (for $f$-trees). The $K_4$-minor-free graphs form a subclass of planar graphs, and are identical to graphs of treewidth at most $2$, and also to graphs whose blocks are series-parallel. We provide examples to show that the inequality above cannot be relaxed by adding $1$ to the right-hand side, and also to show that our result does not hold for general planar graphs. Our proof uses a technique where we incorporate toughness-related information into weights associated with vertices and cutsets.

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arXiv2019

Edge-outer graph embedding and the complexity of the DNA reporter strand problem

In 2009, Jonoska, Seeman and Wu showed that every graph admits a route for a DNA reporter strand, that is, a closed walk covering every edge either once or twice, in opposite directions if twice, and passing through each vertex in a particular way. This corresponds to showing that every graph has an \emph{edge-outer embedding}, that is, an orientable embedding with some face that is incident with every edge. In the motivating application, the objective is such a closed walk of minimum length. Here we give a short algorithmic proof of the original existence result, and also prove that finding a shortest length solution is NP-hard, even for $3$-connected cubic ($3$-regular) planar graphs. Independent of the motivating application, this problem opens a new direction in the study of graph embeddings, and we suggest new problems emerging from it.

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arXiv2019

Toughness and prism-hamiltonicity of $P_4$-free graphs

The \emph{prism} over a graph $G$ is the product $G \Box K_2$, i.e., the graph obtained by taking two copies of $G$ and adding a perfect matching joining the two copies of each vertex by an edge. The graph $G$ is called \emph{prism-hamiltonian} if it has a hamiltonian prism. Jung showed that every $1$-tough $P_4$-free graph with at least three vertices is hamiltonian. In this paper, we extend this to observe that for $k \geq 1$ a $P_4$-free graph has a spanning \emph{$k$-walk} (closed walk using each vertex at most $k$ times) if and only if it is $\frac{1}{k}$-tough. As our main result, we show that for the class of $P_4$-free graphs, the three properties of being prism-hamiltonian, having a spanning $2$-walk, and being $\frac{1}{2}$-tough are all equivalent.

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arXiv2018

The Chvátal-Erdős condition for prism-Hamiltonicity

The prism over a graph $G$ is the cartesian product $G \Box K_2$. It is known that the property of having a Hamiltonian prism (prism-Hamiltonicity) is stronger than that of having a $2$-walk (spanning closed walk using every vertex at most twice) and weaker than that of having a Hamilton path. For a graph $G$, it is known that $α(G) \leq 2 κ(G)$, where $α(G)$ is the independence number and $κ(G)$ is the connectivity, imples existence of a $2$-walk in $G$, and the bound is sharp. West asked for a bound on $α(G)$ in terms of $κ(G)$ guaranteeing prism-Hamiltonicity. In this paper we answer this question and prove that $α(G) \leq 2 κ(G)$ implies the stronger condition, prism-Hamiltonicity of $G$.

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arXiv2016

Hamiltonicity of planar graphs with a forbidden minor

Tutte showed that $4$-connected planar graphs are Hamiltonian, but it is well known that $3$-connected planar graphs need not be Hamiltonian. We show that $K_{2,5}$-minor-free $3$-connected planar graphs are Hamiltonian. This does not extend to $K_{2,5}$-minor-free $3$-connected graphs in general, as shown by the Petersen graph, and does not extend to $K_{2,6}$-minor-free $3$-connected planar graphs, as we show by an infinite family of examples.

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arXiv2016

Spanning trails with maximum degree at most 4 in $2K_2$-free graphs

A graph is called $2K_2$-free if it does not contain two independent edges as an induced subgraph. Mou and Pasechnik conjectured that every $\frac{3}{2}$-tough $2K_2$-free graph with at least three vertices has a spanning trail with maximum degree at most $4$. In this paper, we confirm this conjecture. We also provide examples for all $t < \frac{5}{4}$ of $t$-tough graphs that do not have a spanning trail with maximum degree at most $4$.

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