No Arabic abstract
The objective of the well-known Towers of Hanoi puzzle is to move a set of disks one at a time from one of a set of pegs to another, while keeping the disks sorted on each peg. We propose an adversarial variation in which the first player forbids a set of states in the puzzle, and the second player must then convert one randomly-selected state to another without passing through forbidden states. Analyzing this version raises the question of the treewidth of Hanoi graphs. We find this number exactly for three-peg puzzles and provide nearly-tight asymptotic bounds for larger numbers of pegs.
Two (proper) colorings of a graph are adjacent if they differ on exactly one vertex. Jerrum proved that any $(d + 2)$-coloring of any d-degenerate graph can be transformed into any other via a sequence of adjacent colorings. A result of Bonamy et al. ensures that a shortest transformation can have a quadratic length even for $d = 1$. Bousquet and Perarnau proved that a linear transformation exists for between $(2d + 2)$-colorings. It is open to determine if this bound can be reduced. In this note, we prove that it can be reduced for graphs of treewidth 2, which are 2-degenerate. There exists a linear transformation between 5-colorings. It completes the picture for graphs of treewidth 2 since there exist graphs of treewidth 2 such a linear transformation between 4-colorings does not exist.
Bir{o} et al. (1992) introduced $H$-graphs, intersection graphs of connected subgraphs of a subdivision of a graph $H$. They are related to many classes of geometric intersection graphs, e.g., interval graphs, circular-arc graphs, split graphs, and chordal graphs. We negatively answer the 25-year-old question of Bir{o} et al. which asks if $H$-graphs can be recognized in polynomial time, for a fixed graph $H$. We prove that it is NP-complete if $H$ contains the diamond graph as a minor. We provide a polynomial-time algorithm recognizing $T$-graphs, for each fixed tree $T$. When $T$ is a star $S_d$ of degree $d$, we have an $O(n^{3.5})$-time algorithm. We give FPT- and XP-time algorithms solving the minimum dominating set problem on $S_d$-graphs and $H$-graphs parametrized by $d$ and the size of $H$, respectively. The algorithm for $H$-graphs adapts to an XP-time algorithm for the independent set and the independent dominating set problems on $H$-graphs. If $H$ contains the double-triangle as a minor, we prove that $H$-graphs are GI-complete and that the clique problem is APX-hard. The clique problem can be solved in polynomial time if $H$ is a cactus graph. When a graph $G$ has a Helly $H$-representation, the clique problem can be solved in polynomial time. We show that both the $k$-clique and the list $k$-coloring problems are solvable in FPT-time on $H$-graphs (parameterized by $k$ and the treewidth of $H$). In fact, these results apply to classes of graphs with treewidth bounded by a function of the clique number. We observe that $H$-graphs have at most $n^{O(|H|)}$ minimal separators which allows us to apply the meta-algorithmic framework of Fomin et al. (2015) to show that for each fixed $t$, finding a maximum induced subgraph of treewidth $t$ can be done in polynomial time. When $H$ is a cactus, we improve the bound to $O(|H|n^2)$.
An $(m, n)$-colored mixed graph is a graph having arcs of $m$ different colors and edges of $n$ different colors. A graph homomorphism of an $(m, n$)-colored mixed graph $G$ to an $(m, n)$-colored mixed graph $H$ is a vertex mapping such that if $uv$ is an arc (edge) of color $c$ in $G$, then $f(u)f(v)$ is also an arc (edge) of color $c$. The ($m, n)$-colored mixed chromatic number of an $(m, n)$-colored mixed graph $G$, introduced by Nev{s}etv{r}il and Raspaud [J. Combin. Theory Ser. B 2000] is the order (number of vertices) of the smallest homomorphic image of $G$. Later Bensmail, Duffy and Sen [Graphs Combin. 2017] introduced another parameter related to the $(m, n)$-colored mixed chromatic number, namely, the $(m, n)$-relative clique number as the maximum cardinality of a vertex subset which, pairwise, must have distinct images with respect to any colored homomorphism. In this article, we study the $(m, n$)-relative clique number for the family of subcubic graphs, graphs with maximum degree $Delta$, planar graphs and triangle-free planar graphs and provide new improved bounds in each of the cases. In particular, for subcubic graphs we provide exact value of the parameter.
A graph $G$ is said to be the intersection of graphs $G_1,G_2,ldots,G_k$ if $V(G)=V(G_1)=V(G_2)=cdots=V(G_k)$ and $E(G)=E(G_1)cap E(G_2)capcdotscap E(G_k)$. For a graph $G$, $mathrm{dim}_{COG}(G)$ (resp. $mathrm{dim}_{TH}(G)$) denotes the minimum number of cographs (resp. threshold graphs) whose intersection gives $G$. We present several new bounds on these parameters for general graphs as well as some special classes of graphs. It is shown that for any graph $G$: (a) $mathrm{dim}_{COG}(G)leqmathrm{tw}(G)+2$, (b) $mathrm{dim}_{TH}(G)leqmathrm{pw}(G)+1$, and (c) $mathrm{dim}_{TH}(G)leqchi(G)cdotmathrm{box}(G)$, where $mathrm{tw}(G)$, $mathrm{pw}(G)$, $chi(G)$ and $mathrm{box}(G)$ denote respectively the treewidth, pathwidth, chromatic number and boxicity of the graph $G$. We also derive the exact values for these parameters for cycles and show that every forest is the intersection of two cographs. These results allow us to derive improved bounds on $mathrm{dim}_{COG}(G)$ and $mathrm{dim}_{TH}(G)$ when $G$ belongs to some special graph classes.
Given two independent sets $I, J$ of a graph $G$, and imagine that a token (coin) is placed at each vertex of $I$. The Sliding Token problem asks if one could transform $I$ to $J$ via a sequence of elementary steps, where each step requires sliding a token from one vertex to one of its neighbors so that the resulting set of vertices where tokens are placed remains independent. This problem is $mathsf{PSPACE}$-complete even for planar graphs of maximum degree $3$ and bounded-treewidth. In this paper, we show that Sliding Token can be solved efficiently for cactus graphs and block graphs, and give upper bounds on the length of a transformation sequence between any two independent sets of these graph classes. Our algorithms are designed based on two main observations. First, all structures that forbid the existence of a sequence of token slidings between $I$ and $J$, if exist, can be found in polynomial time. A sufficient condition for determining no-instances can be easily derived using this characterization. Second, without such forbidden structures, a sequence of token slidings between $I$ and $J$ does exist. In this case, one can indeed transform $I$ to $J$ (and vice versa) using a polynomial number of token-slides.