Hamiltonian cycles and paths in vertex-transitive graphs with abelian and nilpotent groups

A note on the middle levels problem

Fast algorithms for finding Hamiltonian paths and cycles in in-tournament digraphs

It has been conjectured that every fullerene, that is, every skeleton of a spherical trivalent graph whose set of faces consists of pentagons and hexagons alone, is Hamiltonian. In this article the validity of this conjecture is explored for the class of leapfrog-fullerenes. It is shown that, given an arbitrary fullerene F, the corresponding leapfrog-fullerene Le(F) contains a Hamilton cycle if the number of vertices of F is congruent to 2 modulo 4 and contains a long cycle missing out only two adjacent vertices, and thus also a Hamilton path, if the number of vertices of F is divisible by 4.

In previous work, Feldmann and Mysliwietz [3] showed that every shuffle-exchange graph contains a Hamilton path. In this paper, we show that there is a linear time ranking algorithm associated with that Hamilton path. The ranking algorithm returns the rank-position of each node of the graph with respect to the order given by the Hamilton path. Ranking algorithms are important for they can be applied to yield efficient implementations of certain network emulations using SIMD-style parallel algorithms for translating node labels.KeywordsCayley GraphHamilton PathRanking AlgorithmInitial NodeGray CodeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

For a connected graph, a path containing all vertices is known as a Hamiltonian path. For general graphs, there is no known necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of Hamiltonian paths and the complexity of finding a Hamiltonian path in general graphs is NP-Complete. We present a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of Hamiltonian paths in 2-trees. Using our characterization, we also present a linear-time algorithm for the existence of Hamiltonian paths in 2-trees. Our characterization is based on a deep understanding of the structure of 2-trees and the combinatorics presented here may be used in other combinatorial problems restricted to 2-trees.

Inclusion and exclusion algorithm for the Hamiltonian path problem

An undirected graph $G$ is $d$-degenerate if every subgraph of $G$ has a vertex of degree at most $d$. By the classical theorem of Erdös and Gallai from 1959, every graph of degeneracy $d>1$ contains a cycle of length at least $d+1$. The proof of Erdös and Gallai is constructive and can be turned into a polynomial time algorithm constructing a cycle of length at least $d+1$. But can we decide in polynomial time whether a graph contains a cycle of length at least $d+2$? An easy reduction from Hamiltonian Cycle provides a negative answer to this question: Deciding whether a graph has a cycle of length at least $d+2$ is NP-complete. Surprisingly, the complexity of the problem changes drastically when the input graph is 2-connected. In this case we prove that deciding whether $G$ contains a cycle of length at least $d+k$ can be done in time $2^{\mathcal{O}(k)}\cdot|V(G)|^{\mathcal{O}(1)}$. In other words, deciding whether a 2-connected $n$-vertex $G$ contains a cycle of length at least $d+\log{n}$ can be done in polynomial time. Similar algorithmic results hold for long paths in graphs. We observe that deciding whether a graph has a path of length at least $d+1$ is NP-complete. However, we prove that if graph $G$ is connected, then deciding whether $G$ contains a path of length at least $d+k$ can be done in time $2^{\mathcal{O}(k)}\cdot n^{\mathcal{O}(1)}$. We complement these results by showing that the choice of degeneracy as the “above guarantee parameterization” is optimal in the following sense: For any $\varepsilon>0$ it is NP-complete to decide whether a connected (2-connected) graph of degeneracy $d$ has a path (cycle) of length at least $(1+\varepsilon)d$.

The research of my dissertation was motivated by the conjecture of Thomassen that every 4-connected line graph is hamiltonian and by the conjecture of Matthews and Sumner that every 4-connected claw-free graph is hamiltonian. Towards the hamiltonian line graph problem, we proved that every 3-edge-connected, essentially 4-edge-connected graph G has a spanning eulerian subgraph, if for every pair of adjacent vertices u and v, dG(u) + dG(v) ≥ 9. A straight forward corollary is that every 4-connected, essentially 6-connected line graph with minimum degree at least 7 is hamiltonian.;We also investigate graphs G such that the line graph L(G) is hamiltonian connected when L( G) is 4-connected. Ryjacek and Vrana recently further conjectured that every 4-connected line graph is hamiltonian-connected. In 2001, Kriesell proved that every 4-connected line graph of a claw free graph is hamiltonian connected. Recently, Lai et al showed that every 4-connected line graph of a quasi claw free graph is hamiltonian connected, and that every 4-connected line graph of an almost claw free graph is hamiltonian connected. In 2009, Broersma and Vumer discovered the P3-dominating (P3D) graphs as a superfamily that properly contains all quasi claw free graphs, and in particular, all claw-free graphs. Here we prove that every 4-connected line graph of a P3D graph is hamiltonian connected, which extends several former results in this area.;R. Gould [15] asked what natural graph properties of G and H are sufficient to imply that the product of G and H is hamiltonian. We first investigate the sufficient and necessary conditions for G x H being hamiltonian or traceable when G is a hamiltonian graph and H is a tree. Then we further investigate sufficient and necessary conditions for G x H being hamiltonian connected, or edge-pancyclic, or pan-connected.;The problem of group colorings of graphs is also investigated in this dissertation. Group coloring was first introduced by Jeager et al. [21]. They introduced a concept of group connectivity as a generalization of nowhere-zero flows. They also introduced group coloring as a dual concept to group connectivity. Prior research on group chromatic number was restricted to simple graphs, and considered only Abelian groups in the definition of chi g(G). The behavior of group coloring for multigraphs is different to that of simple graphs. Thus we extend the definition of group coloring by considering general groups (both Abelian groups and non-Abelian groups), and investigate the properties of chig for multigraphs

Motivated by work of Haythorpe, Thomassen and the author showed that there exists a positive constant $c$ such that there is an infinite family of 4-regular 4-connected graphs, each containing exactly $c$ Hamiltonian cycles. We complement this by proving that the same conclusion holds for planar 4-regular 3-connected graphs, although it does not hold for planar 4-regular 4-connected graphs by a result of Brinkmann and Van Cleemput [European J. Combin., 97 (2021), 103395], and that it holds for 4-regular graphs of connectivity 2 with the constant $144 < c$, which we believe to be minimal among all Hamiltonian 4-regular graphs of sufficiently large order. We then disprove a conjecture of Haythorpe by showing that for every nonnegative integer $k$ there is a 5-regular graph on $26 + 6k$ vertices with $2^{k+10} \cdot 3^{k+3}$ Hamiltonian cycles. We prove that for every $d \ge 3$ there is an infinite family of Hamiltonian 3-connected graphs with minimum degree $d$, with a bounded number of Hamiltonian cycles. It is shown that if a 3-regular graph $G$ has a unique longest cycle $C$, at least two components of $G - E(C)$ have an odd number of vertices on $C$, and that there exist 3-regular graphs with exactly two such components.

solutions to Problems

An Õ(2 n) volume molecular algorithm for Hamiltonian path

A geometric graph is a graph embedded in the plane in such a way that vertices correspond to points in general position and edges correspond to segments connecting the appropriate points. A noncrossing Hamiltonian path in a geometric graph is a Hamiltonian path which does not contain any intersecting pair of edges. In the paper, we study a problem asked by Micha Perles: Determine a function h, where h(n) is the largest number k such that when we remove arbitrary set of k edges from a complete geometric graph on n vertices, the resulting graph still has a noncrossing Hamiltonian path. We prove that h(n) = Ω(√n). We also determine the function exactly in case when the removed edges form a star or a matching, and give asymptotically tight bounds in case they form a clique.

A graph is called Hamiltonian connected if it contains a Hamiltonian path between any two distinct vertices. In the past, we proved the Hamiltonian path and cycle problems for general supergrid graphs to be NP-complete. However, they are still open for solid supergrid graphs. In this paper, first we will verify the Hamiltonian cycle property of C-shaped supergrid graphs, which are a special case of solid supergrid graphs. Next, we show that C-shaped supergrid graphs are Hamiltonian connected except in a few conditions. For these excluding conditions of Hamiltonian connectivity, we compute their longest paths. Then, we design a linear-time algorithm to solve the longest path problem in these graphs. The Hamiltonian connectivity of C-shaped supergrid graphs can be applied to compute the optimal stitching trace of computer embroidery machines, and construct the minimum printing trace of 3D printers with a C-like component being printed.

We consider a problem formulated by Marco Buratti concerning Hamiltonian paths in the complete graph on $Z_p$, $p$ an odd prime.

A direct algorithmic procedure is described for computing Hamiltonian circuits in graphs which satisfy a condition due to Chvatal. For a graph with p vertices this procedure works in O(p 3) operations. It is suggested how this procedure might be used heuristically to compute long paths in general graphs.