On bags and bugs

Pierre Hansen 1,2

GERAD, HEC Montr eal, 3000 chemin de la C ote-Sainte-Catherine, Montr eal, Canada

Dragan Stevanovi c3
Faculty of Science and Mathematics, Vi segradska 33, 18000 Ni s, Serbia and Montenegro

Abstract Usual graph classes, such as complete graphs, paths, cycles and stars, frequently appear as extremal graphs in graph theory problems. Here we want to turn the readers attention to two novel, simply dened, graph classes that appear as extremal graphs in a number of graph theory problems. We call them bags and bugs. As examples of problems where bags and bugs appear, we show that balanced bugs maximize the index of graphs with xed number of vertices and diameter, while odd bags maximize the index of graphs with xed number of vertices and radius. Keywords: Graph; Extremal graphs; Index; Diameter; Radius; Bags; Bugs.

This work has been supported by GERAD and the Data Mining Chair, HEC Montr eal, Canada. The second author acknowledges partial support by Grant 1227 of Serbian Ministry of Science. 2 Email: Pierre.Hansen@gerad.ca 3 Email: dragance106@yahoo.com

Introduction

Graph theory deals extensively with graph invariants, i.e., functions of the set of all graphs G (or subset thereof, such as all conected graphs) into the reals or the integers (and usually taking only positive values). Well known invariants are the independence and chromatic numbers, the radius and diameter and the index (largest eigenvalue of Gs adjacency matrix). Extremal graph theory [2] deals with the problem of characterizing the families of graph G for which an invariant iG is minimum or maximum. Recently, it has been observed in [5,6] that this problem can be viewed as one of mathematical programming and, moreover, that a generic heuristic can be used to solve it, for any invariant or formula dened on one or several invariants which is readily computable. Using the Variable Neighborhood Search heuristic [8], this idea has been implemented in the system AutoGraphiX. It yields, among other results, conjectures on the structure of extremal graphs. Extensive use of that system has shown that the families of extremal graphs for given invariants, as well as for sums, dierences or products of two invariants, are often well-known simple ones, e.g., paths, stars, cycles, complete graphs, complete bipartite graphs and complete split graphs. Several aparently novel families have also been observed. In this paper, we discuss two of them, which we call bags and bugs. They are dened as follows: Denition 1.1 A bag Bagn,m is a graph obtained from a complete graph Kn by replacing an edge uv with a path Pm . A bag is odd if m is odd, otherwise a bag is even. Denition 1.2 A bug Bugn,m1 ,m2 is a graph obtained from a complete graph Kn by deleting an edge uv and attaching paths Pm1 and Pm2 at u and v , respectively. A bug is balanced if |m1 m2 | 1. The gure 1 below gives an example of a bag and a bug. The largest eigenvalue 1 (G) of an adjacency matrix of a graph G is called its index. The following problem concerning the index of graphs was proposed by Brualdi and Solheid [4]: Given a set S of graphs, nd an upper bound for the index of graphs in S and characterize the graphs in which the maximal index is attained. The cases when S is the set of all graphs or all trees are considered classics in the literature on spectral graph theory [7]. This problem has been solved also for a number of dierent sets S : Brualdi et al. [4] considered graphs with n vertices and n + k edges for small k , Cvetkovi c et al. [7] considered spanning trees of complete bipartite graphs, Berman and Zhang [1] considered graphs with n vertices and k cut vertices, to name just

Fig. 1. A Bag5,5 and a Bug5,3,3 .

a few. It is interesting that this problem is still unsolved in the general case when S is the set of graphs with n vertices and m edges. As an example of a problem where bags and bugs appear as extremal graphs, in the next section we solve the problem of Brualdi and Solheid for the set of graphs with n vertices and diameter D and the set of graphs with n vertices and radius r. Some further examples of simple functions of graph invariants for which extremal graphs are conjectured to be bags are the following:

lower bound on average distance minus the radius; lower bound on average distance divided by the radius; upper bound on maximum normalized transmission minus the radius; upper bound on minimum normalized transmission minus the radius.

Further, bugs are conjectured to be extremal graphs for the following functions:

lower bound on average distance divided by the diameter; upper bound on the diameter multiplied by the average degree.

Maximum index of graphs with given diameter or radius

Theorem 2.1 Among all graphs with n vertices and diameter D, the maximum index is attained by a balanced bug BugnD+2, D/2 , D/2 when D 2, and a complete graph Kn when D = 1.

Sketch of the proof A complete graph Kn is the unique graph with n vertices and diameter 1, so the theorem holds for D = 1. A path Pn is the unique graph with n vertices and diameter n 1, and since Pn is isomorphic to Bug3,i,ni1 for 1 i n 2, the theorem holds for D = n 1. Now suppose that 2 D < n 1. Let G = (V, E ) be a graph with maximum index among all graphs with n vertices and diameter D. Let c be a vertex of G with eccentricity D. Denote by Li the set of vertices at distance i from c and let li = |Li |, i = 0, 1, . . . , D. The index of a graph increases by adding an edge, so it follows that G contains all edges between vertices of Li , i = 0, 1, . . . , D, and all edges between vertices of Li1 and Li , i = 1, 2, . . . , D. A bug BugnD+2,i,Di1 with diameter D, i = 1, 2, . . . , D 1, contains graph KnD+2 e as its induced subgraph. It is straightforward to see that the index of KnD+2 e is equal to 1 nD1+ 2 (n D + 2)2 + 2(n D + 2) 7 ,

which is strictly larger than n D. By the Interlacing theorem (see, e.g., [7]) it follows that a bug BugnD+2,i,Di1 has index larger than n D. Thus, G as a graph with maximum index, must have index larger than n D. It is well known that the largest degree of a graph is at least its index, so the largest degree of G must also be larger than n D. On the other hand, it holds that = max{l1 } {li1 + li + li+1 1 : i = 1, 2, . . . , D 1} {lD1 + lD 1}. From here it follows that > n D is possible if and only if for some 1 j D 1 it holds that lj 1 + lj + lj +1 = n D + 2, l1 = = lj 2 = 1, and lj +2 = = lD = 1.

Here we have not yet shown that G is a bug. In order to do so, we next consider index perturbation resulting from a relocation of edges. Let x = (xu )uV be a positive eigenvector corresponding to 1 (G). Let e = rs be an edge of G, and assume that vertex r is not adjacent to vertex t. A rotation R (around vertex r) consists of a deletion of the edge e followed by an addition of the edge e = rt. It is shown in [9] that if G is a graph obtained from G by rotation R and xt xs , then 1 (G ) > 1 (G). Moreover, it is also

shown there that if G is a connected graph with x being a positive eigenvector corresponding to 1 (G ), then xt xs implies xt xs . Due to the fact that 1 (G) is a simple eigenvalue when G is connected, the components of eigenvector x corresponding to similar vertices are equal. Thus, we may denote by xi the component of x corresponding to vertices in Li , i = 0, 1, . . . , D. Let s be a unique vertex in Lj 2 and let t be a vertex in Lj +1 . If lj 1 > 1, moving a vertex r from Lj 1 to Lj results in rotation of the edge rs to the edge rt followed by addition of edges between r and the remaining vertices in Lj +1 . We conclude that if xj 2 xj +1 we may move a vertex from Lj 1 to Lj and increase the index, while keeping the diameter intact. Since G has maximum index, this is a contradiction. Thus, either lj 1 = 1 or xj 2 > xj +1 . Similarly, we conclude that either lj +1 = 1 or xj +2 > xj 1 . It is not hard to show, using the eigenvalue equation for vertices, that the case lj 1 > 1 and lj +1 > 1 is impossible, and then it is straightforward to show that G is indeed a bug, i.e. exactly two of lj 1 , lj and lj +1 are equal to 1, and the third one is equal to n D. Then, by using appropriate rotations, it is not hard to prove that 1 (BugnD+2,k,m ) 1 (BugnD+2,k+1,m1 ) whenever k m 1, and from here it follows that G = BugnD+2,
D/2 , D/2

.2

Theorem 2.2 Among all graphs with n vertices and radius r, the maximum index is attained by an odd bag Bagn2r+3,2r1 when r 3, by an odd bag Bagn1,3 for odd n and r = 2, by n K for even n and r = 2, and by a 2 2 complete graph Kn when r = 1. Sketch of the proof This proof goes along similar lines as that of Theorem 2.1. 2

References
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