ArticleOriginal scientific text

Title

Vizing's conjecture and the one-half argument

Authors 1, 2

Affiliations

  1. Saint Mary's University
  2. Furman University

Abstract

The domination number of a graph G is the smallest order, γ(G), of a dominating set for G. A conjecture of V. G. Vizing [5] states that for every pair of graphs G and H, γ(G☐H) ≥ γ(G)γ(H), where G☐H denotes the Cartesian product of G and H. We show that if the vertex set of G can be partitioned in a certain way then the above inequality holds for every graph H. The class of graphs G which have this type of partitioning includes those whose 2-packing number is no smaller than γ(G)-1 as well as the collection of graphs considered by Barcalkin and German in [1]. A crucial part of the proof depends on the well-known fact that the domination number of any connected graph of order at least two is no more than half its order.

Keywords

domination number, Cartesian product, Vizing's conjecture, clique

Bibliography

  1. A.M. Barcalkin and L.F. German, The external stability number of the Cartesian product of graphs, Bul. Akad. Stiince RSS Moldoven 1 (1979) 5-8.
  2. M. Behzad, G. Chartrand and L. Lesniak-Foster, Graphs and Digraphs (Prindle, Weber & Schmidt International Series, 1979).
  3. B.L. Hartnell and D.F. Rall, On Vizing's conjecture, Congr. Numer. 82 (1991) 87-96.
  4. M.S. Jacobson and L.F. Kinch, On the domination of the products of graphs II: trees, J. Graph Theory 10 (1986) 97-106, doi: 10.1002/jgt.3190100112.
  5. V.G. Vizing, The Cartesian product of graphs, Vyc. Sis. 9 (1963) 30-43.
Pages:
205-216
Main language of publication
English
Received
1995-05-25
Published
1995
Exact and natural sciences