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Winfried Hochstättler

Publications and source records attributed to Winfried Hochstättler.

30 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
arXiv2021

Independent Hyperplanes in Oriented Paving Matroids

In 1993, Csima and Sawyer proved that in a non-pencil arrangement of n pseudolines, there are at least $\frac{6}{13}n$ simple points of intersection. Since pseudoline arrangements are the topological representations of reorientation classes of oriented matroids of rank $3$, in this paper, we will use this result to prove by induction that an oriented paving matroid of rank $r \ge 3$ on $n$ elements, where $n \geq 5+ r$, has at least $\frac{12}{13(r-1)} \binom{n}{r-2}$ independent hyperplanes, yielding a new necessary condition for a paving matroid to be orientable.

math.CO↗
arXiv2020

On the Complexity of Digraph Colourings and Vertex Arboricity

It has been shown by Bokal et al. that deciding 2-colourability of digraphs is an NP-complete problem. This result was later on extended by Feder et al. to prove that deciding whether a digraph has a circular $p$-colouring is NP-complete for all rational $p>1$. In this paper, we consider the complexity of corresponding decision problems for related notions of fractional colourings for digraphs and graphs, including the star dichromatic number, the fractional dichromatic number and the circular vertex arboricity. We prove the following results: Deciding if the star dichromatic number of a digraph is at most $p$ is NP-complete for every rational $p>1$. Deciding if the fractional dichromatic number of a digraph is at most $p$ is NP-complete for every $p>1, p \neq 2$. Deciding if the circular vertex arboricity of a graph is at most $p$ is NP-complete for every rational $p>1$. To show these results, different techniques are required in each case. In order to prove the first result, we relate the star dichromatic number to a new notion of homomorphisms between digraphs, called circular homomorphisms, which might be of independent interest. We provide a classification of the computational complexities of the corresponding homomorphism colouring problems similar to the one derived by Feder et al. for acyclic homomorphisms.

math.CO↗
arXiv2019

A Semi-strong Perfect Digraph Theorem

Reed showed that, if two graphs are $P_4$-isomorphic, then either both are perfect or none of them is. In this note we will derive an analogous result for perfect digraphs.

math.CO↗
arXiv2019

Complete Acyclic Colorings

We study two parameters that arise from the dichromatic number and the vertex-arboricity in the same way that the achromatic number comes from the chromatic number. The adichromatic number of a digraph is the largest number of colors its vertices can be colored with such that every color induces an acyclic subdigraph but merging any two colors yields a monochromatic directed cycle. Similarly, the a-vertex arboricity of an undirected graph is the largest number of colors that can be used such that every color induces a forest but merging any two yields a monochromatic cycle. We study the relation between these parameters and their behavior with respect to other classical parameters such as degeneracy and most importantly feedback vertex sets.

math.CO↗
arXiv2019

The Star Dichromatic Number

We introduce a new notion of circular colourings for digraphs. The idea of this quantity, called star dichromatic number $\vecχ^\ast(D)$ of a digraph $D$, is to allow a finer subdivision of digraphs with the same dichromatic number into such which are "easier" or "harder" to colour by allowing fractional values. This is related to a coherent notion for the vertex arboricity of graphs introduced by Wang et al. and resembles the concept of the star chromatic number of graphs introduced by Vince in the framework of digraph colouring. After presenting basic properties of the new quantity, including range, simple classes of digraphs, general inequalities and its relation to integer counterparts as well as other concepts of fractional colouring, we compare our notion with the notion of circular colourings for digraphs introduced by Bokal et al. and point out similarities as well as differences in certain situations. As it turns out, the star dichromatic number is a lower bound for the circular dichromatic number of Bokal et al., but the gap between the numbers may be arbitrarily close to $1$. We conclude with a discussion of the case of planar digraphs and point out some open problems.

math.CO↗
arXiv2019

On the Geometry of Holmsen's Combinatorial Version of the Colorful Carathéodory

Carathéodorys Theorem of convex hulls plays an important role in convex geometry. In 1982, Bárány formulated and proved a more general version, called the Colorful Carathéodory. This colorful version was even more generalized by Holmsen in 2016. He formulated a combinatorial extension and found a topological proof. Taking a dual point of view we gain an equivalent formulation of Holmsen's result that has a more geometric meaning.

math.CO↗
arXiv2019

The NL-flow polynomial

In 1982 Víctor Neumann-Lara introduced the dichromatic number of a digraph $D$ as the smallest integer $k$ such that the vertices $V$ of $D$ can be colored with $k$ colors and each color class induces an acyclic digraph. Later a flow theory for the dichromatic number transferring Tutte's theory of nowhere-zero flows (NZ-flows) from classic graph colorings has been developed by Hochstättler. The purpose of this paper is to pursue this analogy by introducing a new definition of algebraic Neumann-Lara-flows (NL-flows) and a closed formula for their polynomial. Furthermore we generalize the Equivalence Theorem for nowhere-zero flows to NL-flows in the setting of regular oriented matroids. Finally we discuss computational aspects of computing the NL-flow polynomial for orientations of complete digraphs and obtain a closed formula in the acyclic case.

math.CO↗
arXiv2018

The Varchenko Determinant for Oriented Matroids

We generalize the Varchenko matrix of a hyperplane arrangement to oriented matroids. We show that the celebrated determinant formula for the Varchenko matrix, first proved by Varchenko, generalizes to oriented matroids. It follows that the determinant only depends on the matroid underlying the oriented matroid and analogous formulas hold for cones in oriented matroids. We follow a proof strategy for the original Varchenko formula first suggested by Denham and Hanlon. Besides several technical lemmas this strategy also requires a topological result on supertopes which is of independent interest. We show that a supertope considered as a subposet of the tope poset has a contractible order complex.

math.CO↗
arXiv2018

Lattice Path Matroids are 3-Colorable

We show that every lattice path matroid of rank at least two has a quite simple coline, also known as a positive coline. Therefore every orientation of a lattice path matroid is 3-colorable with respect to the chromatic number of oriented matroids introduced by J. Nešetřil, R. Nickel, and W. Hochstättler.

math.CO↗
arXiv2015

The game colouring number of powers of forests

We prove that the game colouring number of the $m$-th power of a forest of maximum degree $Δ\ge3$ is bounded from above by \[\frac{(Δ-1)^m-1}{Δ-2}+2^m+1,\] which improves the best known bound by an asymptotic factor of 2.

math.CO↗
arXiv2014

Semicircle law for a matrix ensemble with dependent entries

We study ensembles of random symmetric matrices whose entries exhibit certain correlations. Examples are distributions of Curie-Weiss-type. We provide a criterion on the correlations ensuring the validity of Wigner's semicircle law for the eigenvalue distribution measure. In case of Curie-Weiss distributions this criterion applies above the critical temperature (i.e. $β<1$). We also investigate the largest eigenvalue of certain ensembles of Curie-Weiss type and find a transition in its behavior at the critical temperature.

math-ph↗