arXiv subjects

Penny Haxell

Publications and source records attributed to Penny Haxell.

25 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

Extremal Hypergraphs for Ryser's Conjecture: Connectedness of Line Graphs of Bipartite Graphs

In this paper we consider a natural extremal graph theoretic problem of topological sort, concerning the minimization of the (topological) connectedness of the independence complex of graphs in terms of its dimension. We observe that the lower bound $\frac{\dim(\mathcal{I}(G))}{2} - 2$ on the connectedness of the independence complex $\mathcal{I}(G)$ of line graphs of bipartite graphs $G$ is tight. In our main theorem we characterize the extremal examples. Our proof of this characterization is based on topological machinery. Our motivation for studying this problem comes from a classical conjecture of Ryser. Ryser's Conjecture states that any $r$-partite $r$-uniform hypergraph has a vertex cover of size at most $(r - 1)$-times the size of the largest matching. For $r = 2$, the conjecture is simply König's Theorem. It has also been proven for $r = 3$ by Aharoni using a beautiful topological argument. In a separate paper we characterize the extremal examples for the $3$-uniform case of Ryser's Conjecture (i.e., Aharoni's Theorem), and in particular resolve an old conjecture of Lovász for the case of Ryser-extremal $3$-graphs. Our main result in this paper will provide us with valuable structural information for that characterization. Its proof is based on the observation that link graphs of Ryser-extremal $3$-uniform hypergraphs are exactly the bipartite graphs we study here.

math.CO↗

arXiv2016

Extremal Hypergraphs for Ryser's Conjecture: Home-Base Hypergraphs

Ryser's Conjecture states that any $r$-partite $r$-uniform hypergraph has a vertex cover of size at most $r - 1$ times the size of the largest matching. For $r = 2$, the conjecture is simply König's Theorem and every bipartite graph is a witness for its tightness. The conjecture has also been proven for $r = 3$ by Aharoni using topological methods, but the proof does not give information on the extremal $3$-uniform hypergraphs. Our goal in this paper is to characterize those hypergraphs which are tight for Aharoni's Theorem. Our proof of this characterization is also based on topological machinery, particularly utilizing results on the (topological) connectedness of the independence complex of the line graph of the link graphs of $3$-uniform Ryser-extremal hypergraphs, developed in a separate paper. The current paper contains the second, structural hypergraph-theoretic part of the argument, where we use the information on the line graph of the link graphs to nail down the elements of a structure we call \emph{home-base hypergraph}. While there is a single minimal home-base hypergraph with matching number $k$ for every positive integer $k \in \mathbb{N}$, home-base hypergraphs with matching number $k$ are far from being unique. There are infinitely many of them and each of them is composed of $k$ copies of two different kinds of basic structures, whose hyperedges can intersect in various restricted, but intricate ways. Our characterization also proves an old and wide open strengthening of Ryser's Conjecture, due to Lovász, for the $3$-uniform extremal case, that is, for hypergraphs with $τ= 2 ν$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2016

How to morph planar graph drawings

Given an $n$-vertex graph and two straight-line planar drawings of the graph that have the same faces and the same outer face, we show that there is a morph (i.e., a continuous transformation) between the two drawings that preserves straight-line planarity and consists of $O(n)$ steps, which we prove is optimal in the worst case. Each step is a unidirectional linear morph, which means that every vertex moves at constant speed along a straight line, and the lines are parallel although the vertex speeds may differ. Thus we provide an efficient version of Cairns' 1944 proof of the existence of straight-line planarity-preserving morphs for triangulated graphs, which required an exponential number of steps.

cs.CG↗

arXiv2016

On lower bounds for the matching number of subcubic graphs

We give a complete description of the set of triples (a,b,c) of real numbers with the following property. There exists a constant K such that a n_3 + b n_2 + c n_1 - K is a lower bound for the matching number of every connected subcubic graph G, where n_i denotes the number of vertices of degree i for each i.

math.CO↗

arXiv2016

Homological connectivity of random hypergraphs

We consider simplicial complexes that are generated from the binomial random 3-uniform hypergraph by taking the downward-closure. We determine when this simplicial complex is homologically connected, meaning that its zero-th and first homology groups with coefficients in $\mathbb{F}_2$ vanish. Although this is not intrinsically a monotone property, we show that it nevertheless has a single sharp threshold, and indeed prove a hitting time result relating the connectedness to the disappearance of the last minimal obstruction.

math.CO↗

arXiv2014

Morphing Planar Graph Drawings with Unidirectional Moves

Alamdari et al. showed that given two straight-line planar drawings of a graph, there is a morph between them that preserves planarity and consists of a polynomial number of steps where each step is a \emph{linear morph} that moves each vertex at constant speed along a straight line. An important step in their proof consists of converting a \emph{pseudo-morph} (in which contractions are allowed) to a true morph. Here we introduce the notion of \emph{unidirectional morphing} step, where the vertices move along lines that all have the same direction. Our main result is to show that any planarity preserving pseudo-morph consisting of unidirectional steps and contraction of low degree vertices can be turned into a true morph without increasing the number of steps. Using this, we strengthen Alamdari et al.'s result to use only unidirectional morphs, and in the process we simplify the proof.

cs.CG↗

arXiv2014

Morphing Schnyder drawings of planar triangulations

We consider the problem of morphing between two planar drawings of the same triangulated graph, maintaining straight-line planarity. A paper in SODA 2013 gave a morph that consists of $O(n^2)$ steps where each step is a linear morph that moves each of the $n$ vertices in a straight line at uniform speed. However, their method imitates edge contractions so the grid size of the intermediate drawings is not bounded and the morphs are not good for visualization purposes. Using Schnyder embeddings, we are able to morph in $O(n^2)$ linear morphing steps and improve the grid size to $O(n)\times O(n)$ for a significant class of drawings of triangulations, namely the class of weighted Schnyder drawings. The morphs are visually attractive. Our method involves implementing the basic "flip" operations of Schnyder woods as linear morphs.

cs.CG↗