Graph Theory – Number of Non-Isomorphic Regular Graphs with Degree 4 and 7 Vertices

discrete mathematicsgraph theory

I'm faced with a problem in my course where I have to calculate the total number of non-isomorphic graphs. The graph is regular with an degree 4 (meaning each vertice has four edges) and has exact 7 vertices in total.

What is the correct way of handling this question?

After drawing a few graphs and messing around I came to the conclusion the graph is quite symmetric when drawn. I mean there is always one vertice you can take where you can draw a line through the graph and split in half and have two equal mirrored pieces of the graph.

If you build further on that and look I noticed you could have up to 45 or more possibilities. But I don't have a final answer and I don't know if I'm doing it right.

Any help would be appreciated. Kind Regards, Floris

Best Answer

Let $G$ be a $4$-regular graph on $7$ vertices, and let $\overline{G}$ be the complement of $G$. $\overline{G}$ is regular; what is its degree (what you called order in your question)? What do you know about regular graphs of that degree? They’re very easy to count, and since $G_1$ is isomorphic to $G_2$ iff $\overline{G_1}$ is isomorphic to $\overline{G_2}$, counting the complements is as good as counting the graphs themselves.

(Note that the answer depends greatly on whether you’re counting labelled or unlabelled graphs. Also, I’m assuming that you’re looking only at simple graphs, i.e., without loops or multiple edges.)

Added:

To see that counting the complements is good enough, let $\mathscr{G}_n$ be the set of all simple graphs on $n$ vertices, and let $\varphi:\mathscr{G}_n\to\mathscr{G}_n:G\mapsto\overline{G}$ be the map that takes each graph in $\mathscr{G}_n$ to its complement. Then show that $\varphi$ is a bijection, and that $G\in\mathscr{G}_n$ is $k$-regular iff $\varphi(G)=\overline{G}$ is $(n-1-k)$-regular.