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A Hamiltonian path (cycle) in a graph is a path (cycle, respectively) which passes through all of its vertices. The problems of deciding the existence of a Hamiltonian cycle (path) in an input graph are well known to be NP-complete, and restricted classes of graphs which allow for their polynomial-time solutions are intensively investigated. Until very recently the complexity was open even for graphs of independence number at most 3. So far unpublished result of Jedli\v{c}kov\'{a} and Kratochv\'{\i}l [arXiv:2309.09228] shows that for every integer $k$, Hamiltonian path and cycle are polynomial-time solvable in graphs of independence number bounded by $k$. As a companion structural result, we determine explicit obstacles for the existence of a Hamiltonian path for small values of $k$, namely for graphs of independence number 2, 3, and 4. Identifying these obstacles in an input graph yields alternative polynomial-time algorithms for Hamiltonian path and cycle with no large hidden multiplicative constants., Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2309.09228

A Hamiltonian path (a Hamiltonian cycle) in a graph is a path (a cycle, respectively) that traverses all of its vertices. The problems of deciding their existence in an input graph are well-known to be NP-complete, in fact, they belong to the first problems shown to be computationally hard when the theory of NP-completeness was being developed. A lot of research has been devoted to the complexity of Hamiltonian path and Hamiltonian cycle problems for special graph classes, yet only a handful of positive results are known. The complexities of both of these problems have been open even for $4K_1$-free graphs, i.e., graphs of independence number at most $3$. We answer this question in the general setting of graphs of bounded independence number. We also consider a newly introduced problem called \emph{Hamiltonian-$\ell$-Linkage} which is related to the notions of a path cover and of a linkage in a graph. This problem asks if given $\ell$ pairs of vertices in an input graph can be connected by disjoint paths that altogether traverse all vertices of the graph. For $\ell=1$, Hamiltonian-1-Linkage asks for existence of a Hamiltonian path connecting a given pair of vertices. Our main result reads that for every pair of integers $k$ and $\ell$, the Hamiltonian-$\ell$-Linkage problem is polynomial time solvable for graphs of independence number not exceeding $k$.

The complexity of the list homomorphism problem for signed graphs appears difficult to classify. Existing results focus on special classes of signed graphs, such as trees and reflexive signed graphs. Irreflexive signed graphs are in a certain sense the heart of the problem, as noted by a recent paper of Kim and Siggers. We focus on a special class of irreflexive signed graphs, namely those in which the unicoloured edges form a spanning path or cycle, which we call separable signed graphs. We classify the complexity of list homomorphisms to these separable signed graphs; we believe that these signed graphs will play an important role for the general resolution of the irreflexive case. We also relate our results to a conjecture of Kim and Siggers concerning the special case of semi-balanced irreflexive signed graphs; we have proved the conjecture in another paper, and the present results add structural information to that topic., Comment: A revised version, to appear in Theoretical Computer Science

The notion of graph covers is a discretization of covering spaces introduced and deeply studied in topology. In discrete mathematics and theoretical computer science, they have attained a lot of attention from both the structural and complexity perspectives. Nonetheless, disconnected graphs were usually omitted from the considerations with the explanation that it is sufficient to understand coverings of the connected components of the target graph by components of the source one. However, different (but equivalent) versions of the definition of covers of connected graphs generalize to non-equivalent definitions for disconnected graphs. The aim of this paper is to summarize this issue and to compare three different approaches to covers of disconnected graphs: 1) locally bijective homomorphisms, 2) globally surjective locally bijective homomorphisms (which we call \emph{surjective covers}), and 3) locally bijective homomorphisms which cover every vertex the same number of times (which we call \emph{equitable covers}). The standpoint of our comparison is the complexity of deciding if an input graph covers a fixed target graph. We show that both surjective and equitable covers satisfy what certainly is a natural and welcome property: covering a disconnected graph is polynomial-time decidable if such it is for every connected component of the graph, and it is NP-complete if it is NP-complete for at least one of its components. We further argue that the third variant, equitable covers, is the most natural one, namely when considering covers of colored graphs. Moreover, the complexity of surjective and equitable covers differ from the fixed parameter complexity point of view. In line with the current trends in topological graph theory, as well as its applications in mathematical physics, we consider graphs in a very general sense[...], Comment: full version

The CSP dichotomy conjecture has been recently established, but a number of other dichotomy questions remain open, including the dichotomy classification of list homomorphism problems for signed graphs. Signed graphs arise naturally in many contexts, including for instance nowhere-zero flows for graphs embedded in non-orientable surfaces. For a fixed signed graph $\widehat{H}$, the list homomorphism problem asks whether an input signed graph $\widehat{G}$ with lists $L(v) \subseteq V(\widehat{H}), v \in V(\widehat{G}),$ admits a homomorphism $f$ to $\widehat{H}$ with all $f(v) \in L(v), v \in V(\widehat{G})$. Usually, a dichotomy classification is easier to obtain for list homomorphisms than for homomorphisms, but in the context of signed graphs a structural classification of the complexity of list homomorphism problems has not even been conjectured, even though the classification of the complexity of homomorphism problems is known. Kim and Siggers have conjectured a structural classification in the special case of ``weakly balanced" signed graphs. We confirm their conjecture for reflexive and irreflexive signed graphs; this generalizes previous results on weakly balanced signed trees, and weakly balanced separable signed graphs \cite{separable,trees}. In the reflexive case, the result was first presented in \cite{KS}, with the proof using some of our results included in this paper. In fact, here we present our full proof, as an alternative to the proof in \cite{KS}. In particular, we provide direct polynomial algorithms where previously algorithms relied on general dichotomy theorems. The irreflexive results are new, and their proof depends on first deriving a theorem on extensions of min orderings of (unsigned) bipartite graphs, which is interesting on its own. [shortened, full abstract in PDF], Comment: extended version

In line with the recent development in topological graph theory, we are considering undirected graphs that are allowed to contain {\em multiple edges}, {\em loops}, and {\em semi-edges}. A graph is called {\em simple} if it contains no semi-edges, no loops, and no multiple edges. A graph covering projection, also known as a locally bijective homomorphism, is a mapping between vertices and edges of two graphs which preserves incidences and which is a local bijection on the edge-neighborhood of every vertex. This notion stems from topological graph theory, but has also found applications in combinatorics and theoretical computer science. It has been known that for every fixed simple regular graph $H$ of valency greater than 2, deciding if an input graph covers $H$ is NP-complete. Graphs with semi-edges have been considered in this context only recently and only partial results on the complexity of covering such graphs are known so far. In this paper we consider the list version of the problem, called \textsc{List-$H$-Cover}, where the vertices and edges of the input graph come with lists of admissible targets. Our main result reads that the \textsc{List-$H$-Cover} problem is NP-complete for every regular graph $H$ of valency greater than 2 which contains at least one semi-simple vertex (i.e., a vertex which is incident with no loops, with no multiple edges and with at most one semi-edge). Using this result we show the NP-co/polytime dichotomy for the computational complexity of \textsc{ List-$H$-Cover} for cubic graphs., Comment: full version, submited to a journal

We initiate the study of computational complexity of graph coverings, aka locally bijective graph homomorphisms, for {\em graphs with semi-edges}. The notion of graph covering is a discretization of coverings between surfaces or topological spaces, a notion well known and deeply studied in classical topology. Graph covers have found applications in discrete mathematics for constructing highly symmetric graphs, and in computer science in the theory of local computations. In 1991, Abello et al. asked for a classification of the computational complexity of deciding if an input graph covers a fixed target graph, in the ordinary setting (of graphs with only edges). Although many general results are known, the full classification is still open. In spite of that, we propose to study the more general case of covering graphs composed of normal edges (including multiedges and loops) and so-called semi-edges. Semi-edges are becoming increasingly popular in modern topological graph theory, as well as in mathematical physics. They also naturally occur in the local computation setting, since they are lifted to matchings in the covering graph. We show that the presence of semi-edges makes the covering problem considerably harder; e.g., it is no longer sufficient to specify the vertex mapping induced by the covering, but one necessarily has to deal with the edge mapping as well. We show some solvable cases, and completely characterize the complexity of the already very nontrivial problem of covering one- and two-vertex (multi)graphs with semi-edges. Our NP-hardness results are proven for simple input graphs, and in the case of regular two-vertex target graphs, even for bipartite ones. This provides a strengthening of previously known results for covering graphs without semi-edges, and may contribute to better understanding of this notion and its complexity.

A (proper) colouring is acyclic, star, or injective if any two colour classes induce a forest, star forest or disjoint union of vertices and edges, respectively. Hence, every injective colouring is a star colouring and every star colouring is an acyclic colouring. The corresponding decision problems are Acyclic Colouring, Star Colouring and Injective Colouring (the last problem is also known as $L(1,1)$-Labelling). A classical complexity result on Colouring is a well-known dichotomy for $H$-free graphs (a graph is $H$-free if it does not contain $H$ as an induced subgraph). In contrast, there is no systematic study into the computational complexity of Acyclic Colouring, Star Colouring and Injective Colouring despite numerous algorithmic and structural results that have appeared over the years. We perform such a study and give almost complete complexity classifications for Acyclic Colouring, Star Colouring and Injective Colouring on $H$-free graphs (for each of the problems, we have one open case). Moreover, we give full complexity classifications if the number of colours $k$ is fixed, that is, not part of the input. From our study it follows that for fixed $k$ the three problems behave in the same way, but this is no longer true if $k$ is part of the input. To obtain several of our results we prove stronger complexity results that in particular involve the girth of a graph and the class of line graphs of multigraphs., Comment: Extended abstracts appeared / will appear at ESA 2020 and CSR 2021

We consider homomorphisms of signed graphs from a computational perspective. In particular, we study the list homomorphism problem seeking a homomorphism of an input signed graph $(G,\sigma)$, equipped with lists $L(v) \subseteq V(H), v \in V(G)$, of allowed images, to a fixed target signed graph $(H,\pi)$. The complexity of the similar homomorphism problem without lists (corresponding to all lists being $L(v)=V(H)$) has been previously classified by Brewster and Siggers, but the list version remains open and appears difficult. We illustrate this difficulty by classifying the complexity of the problem when $H$ is a tree (with possible loops). The tools we develop will be useful for classifications of other classes of signed graphs, and in a future companion paper we will illustrate this by using them to classify the complexity for certain irreflexive signed graphs. The structure of the signed trees in the polynomial cases is interesting, suggesting that the class of general signed graphs for which the problems are polynomial may have nice structure, analogous to the so-called bi-arc graphs (which characterized the polynomial cases of list homomorphisms to unsigned graphs)., Comment: final version as appeared in DM, the former paper is split into this and "List homomorphisms to separable signed graphs" (to appear on arXiv during this week)

The \emph{Wiener index} is one of the most widely studied parameters in chemical graph theory. It is defined as the sum of the lengths of the shortest paths between all unordered pairs of vertices in a given graph. In 1991, \v{S}olt\'es posed the following problem regarding the Wiener index: Find all graphs such that its Wiener index is preserved upon removal of any vertex. The problem is far from being solved and to this day, only one graph with such property is known: the cycle graph on 11 vertices. In this paper, we solve a relaxed version of the problem, proposed by Knor et al.\ in 2018. For a given $k$, the problem is to find (infinitely many) graphs having exactly $k$ vertices such that the Wiener index remains the same after removing any of them. We call these vertices \emph{good} vertices and we show that there are infinitely many cactus graphs with exactly $k$ cycles of length at least 7 that contain exactly $2k$ good vertices and infinitely many cactus graphs with exactly $k$ cycles of length $c \in \{5,6\}$ that contain exactly $k$ good vertices. On the other hand, we prove that $G$ has no good vertex if the length of the longest cycle in $G$ is at most $4$., Comment: small corrections regarding style and clarity

The \emph{Wiener index} is a widely studied topological index of graphs. One of the main problems in the area is to determine which graphs of given properties attain the extremal values of Wiener index. In this paper we resolve an open problem posed by Du in 2012. To this end we determine the unicyclic bipartite graphs with given size of parts having the maximum Wiener index. This completes the previous research in which the minimum case was solved., Comment: overall improvements

An extension of the well-known Szeged index was introduced recently, named as weighted Szeged index ($\textrm{sz}(G)$). This paper is devoted to characterizing the extremal trees and graphs of this new topological invariant. In particular, we proved that the star is a tree having the maximal $\textrm{sz}(G)$. Finding a tree with the minimal $\textrm{sz}(G)$ is not an easy task to be done. Here, we present the minimal trees up to 25 vertices obtained by computer and describe the regularities which retain in them. Our preliminary computer tests suggest that a tree with the minimal $\textrm{sz}(G)$ is also the connected graph of the given order that attains the minimal weighted Szeged index. Additionally, it is proven that among the bipartite connected graphs the complete balanced bipartite graph $K_{\left\lfloor n/2\right\rfloor\left\lceil n/2 \right\rceil}$ attains the maximal $\textrm{sz}(G)$\,. We believe that the $K_{\left\lfloor n/2\right\rfloor\left\lceil n/2 \right\rceil}$ is a connected graph of given order that attains the maximum $\textrm{sz}(G)$.

In this short note, we show two NP-completeness results regarding the \emph{simultaneous representation problem}, introduced by Lubiw and Jampani. The simultaneous representation problem for a given class of intersection graphs asks if some $k$ graphs can be represented so that every vertex is represented by the same interval in each representation. We prove that it is NP-complete to decide this for the class of interval and circular-arc graphs in the case when $k$ is a part of the input and graphs are not in a sunflower position., Comment: corrected figure

We study \emph{edge-sum distinguishing labeling}, a type of labeling recently introduced by Tuza in [Zs. Tuza, \textit{Electronic Notes in Discrete Mathematics} 60, (2017), 61-68] in context of labeling games. An \emph{ESD labeling} of an $n$-vertex graph $G$ is an injective mapping of integers $1$ to $l$ to its vertices such that for every edge, the sum of the integers on its endpoints is unique. If $l$ equals to $n$, we speak about a \emph{canonical ESD labeling}. We focus primarily on structural properties of this labeling and show for several classes of graphs if they have or do not have a canonical ESD labeling. As an application we show some implications of these results for games based on ESD labeling. We also observe that ESD labeling is closely connected to the well-known notion of \emph{magic} and \emph{antimagic} labelings, to the \emph{Sidon sequences} and to \emph{harmonious labelings}.