arXiv subjects

Matt DeVos

Publications and source records attributed to Matt DeVos.

51 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

A New Proof of Kemperman's Theorem

Let $G$ be an additive abelian group and let $A,B \subseteq G$ be finite and nonempty. The pair $(A,B)$ is called critical if the sumset $A+B = {a+b \mid $a \in A$ and $b\in B$}$ satisfies $|A+B| < |A| + |B|$. Vosper proved a theorem which characterizes all critical pairs in the special case when $|G|$ is prime. Kemperman generalized this by proving a structure theorem for critical pairs in an arbitrary abelian group. Here we give a new proof of Kemperman's Theorem.

math.CO↗

arXiv2013

A short proof of Kneser's addition theorem for abelian groups

Martin Kneser proved the following addition theorem for every abelian group $G$. If $A,B \subseteq G$ are finite and nonempty, then $|A+B| \ge |A+K| + |B+K| - |K|$ where $K = \{g \in G \mid g+A+B = A+B \}$. Here we give a short proof of this based on a simple intersection union argument.

math.CO↗

arXiv2012

Integral Cayley multigraphs over Abelian and Hamiltonian groups

It is shown that a Cayley multigraph over a group $G$ with generating multiset $S$ is integral (i.e., all of its eigenvalues are integers) if $S$ lies in the integral cone over the boolean algebra generated by the normal subgroups of $G$. The converse holds in the case when $G$ is abelian. This in particular gives an alternative, character theoretic proof of a theorem of Bridges and Mena (1982). We extend this result to provide a necessary and sufficient condition for a Cayley multigraph over a Hamiltonian group to be integral, in terms of character sums and the structure of the generating set.

math.CO↗

arXiv2012

A note on forbidding clique immersions

Robertson and Seymour proved that the relation of graph immersion is well-quasi-ordered for finite graphs. Their proof uses the results of graph minors theory. Surprisingly, there is a very short proof of the corresponding rough structure theorem for graphs without $K_t$-immersions; it is based on the Gomory-Hu theorem. The same proof also works to establish a rough structure theorem for Eulerian digraphs without $\vec{K}_t$-immersions, where $\vec{K}_t$ denotes the bidirected complete digraph of order $t$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2011

Small separations in vertex transitive graphs

Let $k$ be an integer. We prove a rough structure theorem for separations of order at most $k$ in finite and infinite vertex transitive graphs. Let $G = (V,E)$ be a vertex transitive graph, let $A \subseteq V$ be a finite vertex-set with $|A| \le |V|/2$ and $|\{v \in V \setminus A : {$u \sim v$ for some $u \in A$} \}|\le k$. We show that whenever the diameter of $G$ is at least $31(k+1)^2$, either $|A| \le 2k^3+k^2$, or $G$ has a ring-like structure (with bounded parameters), and $A$ is efficiently contained in an interval. This theorem may be viewed as a rough characterization, generalizing an earlier result of Tindell, and has applications to the study of product sets and expansion in groups.

math.CO↗

arXiv2011

Immersing complete digraphs

We consider the problem of immersing the complete digraph on t vertices in a simple digraph. For Eulerian digraphs, we show that such an immersion always exists whenever minimum degree is at least t(t-1), and for t at most 4 minimum degree at least t-1 suffices. On the other hand, we show that there exist non-Eulerian digraphs with all vertices of arbitrarily high in- and outdegree which do not contain an immersion of the complete digraph on 3 vertices. As a side result, we obtain a construction of digraphs with large outdegree in which all cycles have odd length, simplifying a former construction of such graphs by Thomassen.

math.CO↗

arXiv2011

Minimum degree condition forcing complete graph immersion

An immersion of a graph $H$ into a graph $G$ is a one-to-one mapping $f:V(H) \to V(G)$ and a collection of edge-disjoint paths in $G$, one for each edge of $H$, such that the path $P_{uv}$ corresponding to edge $uv$ has endpoints $f(u)$ and $f(v)$. The immersion is strong if the paths $P_{uv}$ are internally disjoint from $f(V(H))$. It is proved that for every positive integer $t$, every simple graph of minimum degree at least $200t$ contains a strong immersion of the complete graph $K_t$. For dense graphs one can say even more. If the graph has order $n$ and has $2cn^2$ edges, then there is a strong immersion of the complete graph on at least $c^2 n$ vertices in $G$ in which each path $P_{uv}$ is of length 2. As an application of these results, we resolve a problem raised by Paul Seymour by proving that the line graph of every simple graph with average degree $d$ has a clique minor of order at least $cd^{3/2}$, where $c>0$ is an absolute constant. For small values of $t$, $1\le t\le 7$, every simple graph of minimum degree at least $t-1$ contains an immersion of $K_t$ (Lescure and Meyniel, DeVos et al.). We provide a general class of examples showing that this does not hold when $t$ is large.

math.CO↗

arXiv2010

Average Degree in Graph Powers

The kth power of a simple graph G, denoted G^k, is the graph with vertex set V(G) where two vertices are adjacent if they are within distance k in G. We are interested in finding lower bounds on the average degree of G^k. Here we prove that if G is connected with minimum degree d > 2 and |V(G)| > (8/3)d, then G^4 has average degree at least (7/3)d. We also prove that if G is a connected d-regular graph on n vertices with diameter at least 3k+3, then the average degree of G^{3k+2} is at least (2k+1)(d+1) - k(k+1) (d+1)^2/n - 1. Both of these results are shown to be essentially best possible; the second is best possible even when n/d is arbitrarily large.

math.CO↗

arXiv2010

Unexpected behaviour of crossing sequences

The n-th crossing number of a graph G, denoted cr_n(G), is the minimum number of crossings in a drawing of G on an orientable surface of genus n. We prove that for every a>b>0, there exists a graph G for which cr_0(G) = a, cr_1(G) = b, and cr_2(G) = 0. This provides support for a conjecture of Archdeacon et al. and resolves a problem of Salazar.

math.CO↗

arXiv2010

Edge Growth in Graph Cubes

We show that for every connected graph $G$ of diameter $\ge 3$, the graph $G^3$ has average degree $\ge 7/4 δ(G)$. We also provide an example showing that this bound is best possible. This resolves a question of Hegarty \cite{PH}.

math.CO↗

arXiv2010

An Eberhard-like theorem for pentagons and heptagons

Eberhard proved that for every sequence $(p_k), 3\le k\le r, k\ne 5,7$ of non-negative integers satisfying Euler's formula $\sum_{k\ge3} (6-k) p_k = 12$, there are infinitely many values $p_6$ such that there exists a simple convex polyhedron having precisely $p_k$ faces of length $k$ for every $k\ge3$, where $p_k=0$ if $k>r$. In this paper we prove a similar statement when non-negative integers $p_k$ are given for $3\le k\le r$, except for $k=5$ and $k=7$. We prove that there are infinitely many values $p_5,p_7$ such that there exists a simple convex polyhedron having precisely $p_k$ faces of length $k$ for every $k\ge3$. %, where $p_k=0$ if $k>r$. We derive an extension to arbitrary closed surfaces, yielding maps of arbitrarily high face-width. Our proof suggests a general method for obtaining results of this kind.

math.CO↗

arXiv2009

High-girth cubic graphs are homomorphic to the Clebsch graph

We give a (computer assisted) proof that the edges of every graph with maximum degree 3 and girth at least 17 may be 5-colored (possibly improperly) so that the complement of each color class is bipartite. Equivalently, every such graph admits a homomorphism to the Clebsch graph. Hopkins and Staton and Bondy and Locke proved that every (sub)cubic graph of girth at least 4 has an edge-cut containing at least 4/5 of the edges. The existence of such an edge-cut follows immediately from the existence of a 5-edge-coloring as described above, so our theorem may be viewed as a coloring extension of their result (under a stronger girth assumption). Every graph which has a homomorphism to a cycle of length five has an above-described 5-edge-coloring; hence our theorem may also be viewed as a weak version of Nesetril's Pentagon Problem (which asks whether every cubic graph of sufficiently high girth is homomorphic to C_5).

math.CO↗

arXiv2008

5-cycles and the Petersen graph

We show that if G is a connected bridgeless cubic graph whose every 2-factor is comprised of cycles of length five then G is the Petersen graph.

cs.DM↗

arXiv2007

Cayley sum graphs and eigenvalues of $(3,6)$-fullerenes

We determine the spectra of cubic plane graphs whose faces have sizes 3 and 6. Such graphs, "(3,6)-fullerenes", have been studied by chemists who are interested in their energy spectra. In particular we prove a conjecture of Fowler, which asserts that all their eigenvalues come in pairs of the form $\{λ,-λ\}$ except for the four eigenvalues $\{3,-1,-1,-1\}$. We exhibit other families of graphs which are "spectrally nearly bipartite" in this sense. Our proof utilizes a geometric representation to recognize the algebraic structure of these graphs, which turn out to be examples of Cayley sum graphs.

math.CO↗

arXiv2007

A quadratic lower bound for subset sums

Let A be a finite nonempty subset of an additive abelian group G, and let Σ(A) denote the set of all group elements representable as a sum of some subset of A. We prove that |Σ(A)| >= |H| + 1/64 |A H|^2 where H is the stabilizer of Σ(A). Our result implies that Σ(A) = Z/nZ for every set A of units of Z/nZ with |A| >= 8 \sqrt{n}. This consequence was first proved by Erdős and Heilbronn for n prime, and by Vu (with a weaker constant) for general n.

math.NT↗