- Circulant graph
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In graph theory, a circulant graph is an undirected graph that has a cyclic group of symmetries that includes a symmetry taking any vertex to any other vertex.
Contents
Equivalent definitions
Circulant graphs can be described in several equivalent ways:[1]
- The automorphism group of the graph includes a cyclic subgroup that acts transitively on the graph's vertices.
- The graph has an adjacency matrix that is a circulant matrix.
- The n vertices of the graph can be numbered from 0 to n − 1 in such a way that, if some two vertices numbered x and y are adjacent, then every two vertices numbered z and z − x + y (mod n) are adjacent.
- The graph can be drawn (possibly with crossings) so that its vertices lie on the corners of a regular polygon, and every rotational symmetry of the polygon is also a symmetry of the drawing. (However, reflecting the polygon may give a different drawing.)
- The circulant graph with jumps is often defined as the graph with n nodes labeled each node i being adjacent to the nodes .
Examples
Every cycle graph is a circulant graph, as is every crown graph.
The Paley graphs of order n (where n is a prime number congruent to 1 modulo 4) is a graph in which the vertices are the numbers from 0 to n − 1 and two vertices are adjacent if their difference is a quadratic residue modulo n. Since the presence or absence of an edge depends only on the difference modulo n of two vertex numbers, any Paley graph is a circulant graph.
Every Möbius ladder is a circulant graph, as is every complete graph. A complete bipartite graph is a circulant graph if it has the same number of vertices on both sides of its bipartition.
If two numbers m and n are relatively prime, then the m × n rook's graph (a graph that has a vertex for each square of an m × n chessboard and an edge for each two squares that a chess rook can move between in a single move) is a circulant graph. This is because its symmetries include as a subgroup the cyclic group . More generally, in this case, the tensor product of graphs between any m- and n-vertex circulants is itself a circulant.[1]
Many of the known lower bounds on Ramsey numbers come from examples of circulant graphs that have small maximum cliques and small maximum independent sets.[2]
Properties
From the last definiton it follows that is a 2k regular graph. is connected if and only if . It is known that if are fixed integers then the number of spanning trees is where an satisfies a recurrence relation of order . This fact can be used to derived the well known identity where fn denotes the n'th Fibonacci number.
Self-complementary circulants
A self-complementary graph is a graph in which replacing every edge by a non-edge and vice versa produces an isomorphic graph. For instance, a five-vertex cycle graph is self-complementary, and is also a circulant graph. More generally every Paley graph is a self-complementary circulant graph.[3] Horst Sachs showed that, if a number n has the property that every prime factor of n must be congruent to 1 modulo 4, then there exists a self-complementary circulant with n vertices. He conjectured that this condition is also necessary: that no other values of n allow a self-complementary circulant to exist.[1][3] The conjecture was proven some 40 years later, by Vilfred.[1]
Ádam's conjecture
Define a circulant numbering of a circulant graph to be a labeling of the vertices of the graph by the numbers from 0 to n − 1 in such a way that, if some two vertices numbered x and y are adjacent, then every two vertices numbered z and z − x + y (mod n) are adjacent. Equivalently, a circulant numbering is a numbering of the vertices for which the adjacency matrix of the graph is a circulant matrix.
Let a be an integer that is relatively prime to n, and let b be any integer. Then the linear function that takes a number x to ax + b transforms a circulant numbering to another circulant numbering. Ádam conjectured that these linear maps are the only ways of renumbering a circulant graph while preserving the circulant property: that is, if G and H are isomorphic circulant graphs, with different numberings, then there is a linear map that transforms the numbering for G into the numbering for H. However, Ádam's conjecture is now known to be false. A counterexample is given by graphs G and H with 16 vertices each; a vertex x in G is connected to the six neighbors x ± 1, x ± 2, and x ± 7, while in H the six neighbors are x ± 2, x ± 3, and x ± 5. These two graphs are isomorphic, but their isomorphism cannot be realized by a linear map.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e Vilfred, V. (2004), "On circulant graphs", in Balakrishnan, R.; Sethuraman, G.; Wilson, Robin J., Graph Theory and its Applications (Anna University, Chennai, March 14–16, 2001), Alpha Science, pp. 34–36, http://books.google.com/books?id=wG-08Lv8E-0C&pg=PA34.
- ^ Small Ramsey Numbers, Stanisław P. Radziszowski, Electronic J. Combinatorics, dynamic survey updated 2009.
- ^ a b Sachs, Horst (1962). "Über selbstkomplementäre Graphen". Publicationes Mathematicae Debrecen 9: 270–288. MR0151953..
External links
- Weisstein, Eric W., "Circulant Graph" from MathWorld.
Categories:- Graph families
- Regular graphs
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