Paper 2, Section II, 17 G

Graph Theory | Part II, 2021

(a) Define a tree and what it means for a graph to be acyclic. Show that if GG is an acyclic graph on nn vertices then e(G)⩽n−1e(G) \leqslant n-1. [You may use the fact that a spanning tree on nn vertices has n−1n-1 edges.]

(b) Show that any 3-regular graph on nn vertices contains a cycle of length ⩽\leqslant 100log⁡n100 \log n. Hence show that there exists n0n_{0} such that every 3-regular graph on more than n0n_{0} vertices must contain two cycles C1,C2C_{1}, C_{2} with disjoint vertex sets.

(c) An unfriendly partition of a graph G=(V,E)G=(V, E) is a partition V=A∪BV=A \cup B, where A,B≠∅A, B \neq \emptyset, such that every vertex v∈Av \in A has ∣N(v)∩B∣⩾∣N(v)∩A∣|N(v) \cap B| \geqslant|N(v) \cap A| and every v∈Bv \in B has ∣N(v)∩A∣⩾∣N(v)∩B∣|N(v) \cap A| \geqslant|N(v) \cap B|. Show that every graph GG with ∣G∣⩾2|G| \geqslant 2 has an unfriendly partition.

(d) A friendly partition of a graph G=(V,E)G=(V, E) is a partition V=S∪TV=S \cup T, where S,T≠∅S, T \neq \emptyset, such that every vertex v∈Sv \in S has ∣N(v)∩S∣⩾∣N(v)∩T∣|N(v) \cap S| \geqslant|N(v) \cap T| and every v∈Tv \in T has ∣N(v)∩T∣⩾∣N(v)∩S∣|N(v) \cap T| \geqslant|N(v) \cap S|. Give an example of a 3-regular graph (on at least 1 vertex) that does not have a friendly partition. Using part (b), show that for large enough n0n_{0} every 3-regular graph GG with ∣G∣⩾n0|G| \geqslant n_{0} has a friendly partition.

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