The maximal complete bipartite subgraphs of the partition graph $\mathcal{P}(3^3)$.

combinatoricsdiscrete mathematicsgraph theory

The concept of a partition graph is similar to the Kneser graph concept.

Every vertex of a partition graph $\mathcal{P}(g^g)$ is a partition of $\{1,2, …, g^2 \}$ into $g$ cells of size $g$. Two vertices $u$ and $v$ are adjacent if the intersection of each cell of $u$ with each cell of $v$ be nonempty.

I am working on $\mathcal{P}(3^3)$. The vertices of this graph are partitions of $\{1,2, …, 9\}$ into $3$ cells of size $3$, and two vertices $u$ and $v$ are adjacent if each cell of $u$ has an element in each cell of $v$.

I am looking for all maximal complete bipartite subgraphs of this graph. I have already managed to find $K_{1,36}$ (th degree of each vertex is $36$), $K_{2,2}$, $K_{4,4}$, $K_{6,4}$, $K_{2,12}$.

I am not looking for the number of complete bipartite subgraphs, I need to find all maximal complete bipartite subgraphs. Any help would be appreciated.

Best Answer

The situation here is as follows. (Excuse me for repeating your conclusions.)

  1. In fact, in the graph $G$ there exists a complete subgraph $K_{1,36}$ simply because the degree of each vertex of the graph $G$ is $36$.

  2. Then there exists a subgraph $K_{2,12}$ and no subgraph $K_{2,n}$ with $n>12$.

  3. There exists a subgraph $K_{4,6}$ and no subgraphs $K_{4,n}$ with $n>6$.

  4. There are no subgraphs $K_{m,n}$ with $m\leq n$ and $m>4$ and $K_{3,n}$ with $n>6$.

This follows from this consideration. For each fixed vertex $v$ there exists a set $U$ of vertices $G$ such that $|U|=27$ and $v,x$ have exactly $12$ common neighbors for each $x\in U$ and no more than $4$ neighbors for each $x\notin U$.

Then all complete bipartite subgraphs containing a fixed vertex $v$ and several vertices of $U$ are easily computed.

To summarize, you have actually listed all possible complete bipartite subgraphs of $G$. Apparently, if $G$ contains a subgraph $K_{m,n}$, then $G$ also contains a subgraph $K_{r,s}$ for any $r\leq m$ and $s\leq n$.

I will add more: this is a remarkable question.

Sketch of the proof.

Since the group of permutations $S_9$ lies in the group of automorphisms of the graph $G$, that is, $S_n\leq\operatorname{Aut}(G)$, we can assume that $v=(123)(456)(789)$.

Denote by $N_G(v,x)$ the set of all common neighbors of $v$ and $x$. It is not difficult to prove that $|N_G(v,x)| =12$ if $x$ has the form $(123)(\cdots)(\cdots)$ or $(\cdots)(456)(\cdots)$ or $(\cdots)(\cdots)(789)$.

If $x$ has the form $(1\cdot\cdot)(2\cdot\cdot)(3\cdot\cdot)$, then $|N_G(v,x)|=2$.

If $x$ has the form $(12\cdot)(3\cdot\cdot)(\cdots)$ or $(13\cdot)(2\cdot\cdot)(\cdots)$ or $(23\cdot)(1\cdot\cdot)(\cdots)$ and the last bracket is not $(456)$ or $(789)$, then $|N_G(v,x)|=4$.

It follows that if the vertices $v, x_1,\ldots,x_s$, $s\geq1$, have more than four common neighbors, then they all have a common cell. We can assume that the common cell is $(123)$.

There are $10$ vertices having cell $(123)$ including $v$. We can assume that $x_1=(123)(457)(689)$ (for the third time we use that $S_n\leq\operatorname{Aut}(G)$). Now there are $8$ possibilities for choosing $x_2$. I haven't come up with anything other than a brute force, but the brute force is very small. The result is $|N_G(v,x_1,x_2)|\leq6$. And so on.

Related Question