A generalization of the Hoffman-Lovász upper bound on the independence number of a regular graph

A family of quadratic programming problems whose optimal values are upper bounds on the independence number of a graph is introduced. Among this family, the quadratic programming problem which gives the best upper bound is identified. Also the proof that the upper bound introduced by Hoffman and Lovász for regular graphs is a particular case of this family is given. In addition, some new results characterizing the class of graphs for which the independence number attains the optimal value of the above best upper bound are given. Finally a polynomial-time algorithm for approximating the size of the maximum independent set of an arbitrary graph is described and the computational experiments carried out on 36 DIMACS clique benchmark instances are reported.

Necessary and sufficient conditions for a Hamiltonian graph

A graph is singular if the zero eigenvalue is in the spectrum of its 0-1 adjacency matrix A. If an eigenvector belonging to the zero eigenspace of A has no zero entries, then the singular graph is said to be a core graph. A ( k,t)-regular set is a subset of the vertices inducing a k -regular subgraph such that every vertex not in the subset has t neighbours in it. We consider the case when k=t which relates to the eigenvalue zero under certain conditions. We show that if a regular graph has a ( k,k )-regular set, then it is a core graph. By considering the walk matrix we develop an algorithm to extract ( k,k )-regular sets and formulate a necessary and sufficient condition for a graph to be Hamiltonian.

Spectra of graphs obtained by a generalization of the join graph operation

Taking a Fiedler’s result on the spectrum of a matrix formed from two symmetric matrices as a motivation, a more general result is deduced and applied to the determination of adjacency and Laplacian spectra of graphs obtained by a generalized join graph operation on families of graphs (regular in the case of adjacency spectra and arbitrary in the case of Laplacian spectra). Some additional consequences are explored, namely regarding the largest eigenvalue and algebraic connectivity.