Minimum and Maximum number of edges of a graph with vertex degree restricted

graph theory

Today we were given this problem:
Given a simple and connected graph with 7 vertices, such that they all have degree more than or equal to 2 and that at least two of them have degree less than or equal to 3, calculate the minimum and maximum number of edges of the graph. A bonus question was to determine the number of edges for which the graph could not be bipartite.
What I thought:
The minimum number of edges will be achieved when all vertices have degree $2$, so the number of edges will be $7$.
I do not know how to justify the maximum, but I thought that I could have three vertices with degree $6$, two of them with degree $4$ and two of them with degree $3$, achieving $16$ edges.
I know that a bipartite graph has at most $n^2/4$ edges ($n$ is the number of vertices of the graph), so edges must lie between $7$ and $11$. Moreover, the only graph with $7$ edges that fits the conditions is the 7-cycle, which is not bipartite, so we can restrict it to $8-11$.
Any help/advice?

Best Answer

  1. Apparently, we still need to prove that there cannot be $17$ edges or more under the given conditions. In fact, if our graph has at least $17$ edges, then removal of two vertices of degree $3$ will lead to removal of no more than $6$ edges. But then we would get a graph with $5$ vertices and at least $11$ edges, which is impossible.

  2. Graph $K_{3,4}$ has $12$ edges and $4$ vertices of degree $3$. If a graph has $7$ vertices and $13$ edges, then it cannot be bipartite. This can be easily checked because graphs $K_{1,6}$ and $K_{2,5}$ have $6$ and $10$ edges respectively and it is obvious that any bipartite graph is complemented to a complete bipartite graph with the same number of vertices.