Mock Combi

Shourya Pandey

Instructions:

• There are 7 problems in all.

• All questions carry equal marks.
• Solutions to problems may be submitted in any convenient manner. Do mention
your AoPS username if you decide to mail it to me.
• While the solutions to all problems use elementary ideas, the questions are of a much
higher difficulty level. Solving even a few problems is considered to be excellent. Do
not be disheartened if you are unable to solve the questions; most people will be on
the same level as you are.
• Most questions can be found on the internet. It is up to you to remain true to
yourself.
• I have tried to explain as many graph-theoretic terms as possible. Do not post
doubts regarding terminology in the group, as this often leads to a ruckus.
Ask me in private. Also, graph theory is really not different from combinatorics.
Don’t be afraid to try the questions. Give them all a shot.
Problem 1 : Moving in circles
Suppose there are n ≥ 1 points on a circle, and a boy named Aditya is located at one of them. At each
step, he moves one step to the neighbouring point in either clockwise or anti-clockwise direction, with
equal probability. What is the expected number of moves for him to visit all n points?
Do the same, if Aditya can move to any point in a step, each with probability 1/n (he may stay at the
same point with probability 1/n).

Problem 2 : Not a substring

For this problem, consider the set of only those words whose letters are from the alphabet {a, b, c}. For
any word w and any natural number n, We define f (w, n) to be the set of those n-letter words that do not
contain w as a contiguous substring. For example, f (aaa, 4) = 76; there are 34 = 81 words of length 4, of
which we do not want the 5 words aaaa, aaab, aaac, baaa, and caaa.
Prove that for any natural number n, we have

f (abacb, n) = f (bbabc, n) = f (aabab, n) = f (ccacb, n)

Problem 3 : Path decompositions

For a graph H and a graph G, we say that G has an H-decomposition if G contains m subgraphs, each of
which is isomorphic to H, and such that each edge of G occurs in exactly one subgraph.

Suppose G is a connected graph with an even number of edges, say 2m. Prove that G contains m
subgraphs, each of which is isomorphic to P3 , such that every edge in G belongs to exactly one of the
subgraphs. That is, prove that there is a P3 -decomposition of G.
Give an example of a connected graph on 3m edges, m ≥ 2, such that G does not have a P4 -decomposition.
Find such a graph that does not have a bridge, for sufficiently large m.

Problem 4 : A problem on infinite graphs

Let G be an infinite undirected graph, whose vertex set is R2 , and whose edge set is the unordered pair of
those points whose distance is equal to 1. Show that

4 ≤ χ(G) ≤ 7

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Problem 5 : Large girth, large cycles
Let G be a graph on n vertices such that there are no cycles of length ≤ 2r in G (in other words, the girth
of G is at least 2r + 1), where r is some natural number. Show that the number of cycles in G with length
2r+1 is at most cn4 , for some constant c that does not depend on n or r.

Try to find as good a c as you can, but any c will fetch full marks. However, if you can prove that
the number of such cycles is o(n4 ), then you get bonus marks.

Problem 6 : A large bipartite graph

Prove that a graph G on n vertices and m edges has chromatic number r. Show that G has a bipartite
subgraph with at least
 
m 1
1+
2 2b(r − 1)/2c + 1
edges.

Problem 7 : Perfect Matchings in Bipartite Graphs

Let G be a bipartite graph with a weight function w : E → R on its edges, that is, each edge has a real
number associated with it. For any perfect matching M , the weight of M , denoted by w(M ), is defined as
the sum of the weights of the edges in M , that is,
X
w(M ) = w(e)
e∈M

Let W denote the real number which is the minimum possible weight of a perfect matching. A minimum
weight perfect matching is a perfect matching whose weight is W . Let E 0 ⊆ E be the set of those edges in
G that belong to some minimum weight perfect matching.

• Let C = (e1 , e2 , · · · , e2k ) be a cycle of length 2k in the subgraph G0 (V, E 0 ) with edges e1 , e2 , · · · , e2k .
Show that the signed weight of C defined as

w(e1 ) − w(e2 ) + w(e3 ) − w(e4 ) + · · · + w(e2k−1 ) − w(e2k )

is zero.

• Show that this implies that all perfect matchings in G0 (V, E 0 ) have the same weight.

Give an example of a non-bipartite graph with a weight function such that neither of the above statements
hold for it.

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Some terminologies
• Graph : Formally, a unordered simple graph G is a tuple (V, E), where V is a set of elements
called the vertices (or nodes) of G, and E is a set containing some (but not necessarily all) 2-element
subsets of V called the edges of G. Hereafter, by graph, we mean an undirected simple graph, unless
specified.
We can view a finite graph (that is, a graph with finitely many vertices) by making n points in space,
where each point corresponds to an element in V . We draw a line (or any curve) between two points
if the 2-tuple comprising of the elements represented by those two points is an edge of G.
Sometimes, G is also written as G(V, E). Two vertices u and v are said to be adjacent if there an
edge joining them. The degree of a vertex P u, denoted du or deg(u), is the number of vertices it is
adjacent to. It is not hard to show that u∈V du = 2|E|.

• Isomorphism : Two graphs G(V, E) and G0 (V 0 , E 0 ) are said to be isomorphic to each other if there
exists a bijection φ : V → V 0 such that for any u, v ∈ V , {u, v} ∈ E ⇐⇒ {φ(u), φ(v)} ∈ E 0 . φ
is also called an isomorphism from G to G0 . Note that the isomorphism relation is an equivalence
relation.

• Subgraph : A graph H(V 0 , E 0 ) is a subgraph of G(V, E) if V 0 ⊆ V and E 0 ⊆ E. Actually, this

notion is often overloaded; when we usually say that a graph H is a subgraph of G, we often mean
that there is a subgraph of G which is isomorphic to H.
For instance, suppose G has vertex set V (G) = {1, 2, 3} and edge set {{1, 2}, {2, 3}, {1, 3}}. Suppose
H has vertex set {4, 5} and edge set {{4, 5}}. By our first definition of subgraphs, H is not really
a subgraph of G has V (H) = {4, 5} 6⊆ {1, 2, 3} = V (G). However, the subgraph G0 ({1, 2}, {{1, 2}}
of G is isomorphic to H. Therefore H is isomorphic to some subgraph of G; we will still call H
a subgraph of G. Note that we are able to do this only because the isomorphism relation is an
equivalence relation.

• Bipartite graph : A graph G(V, E) is bipartite if we can partition V into two sets L and R such
that any edge e ∈ E goes across from L to R. In other words, L has no edge within itself and R has
no edge within itself. The sets L and R are called partite sets of G.

• Some special graphs :

A path Pn is a graph with n vertices, say V = {v1 , v2 , · · · , vn } and E = {{v1 , v2 }, {v2 , v3 }, · · · , {vn−1 , vn }}.
A cycle Cn is a graph with n vertices, say V = {v1 , v2 , · · · , vn }, and such that E = {{v1 , v2 }, {v2 , v3 }, · · · ,
{vn−1 , vn }, {vn , v1 }}. Note that removing any one edge from a cycle gives a Pn .
A complete graph, denoted Kn , is a graph on n vertices such that any two vertices have an edge
between them. Note that Kn has n(n − 1)/2 edges. A complete bipartite graph, denoted Km,n ,
is a bipartite graph on m + n vertices with partite sets L and R of cardinalities m and n respectively,
such that every vertex in L is joined to each vertex of R. Note that Km,n has m · n edges.

• Colourability and Chromatic Number:

This generalises the notion of bipartite graphs. A graph G is said to have be r−colourable, for
some r ≥ 0, if each vertex can be coloured with one of r distinct available colours in such a way that
two adjacent vertices have distinct colours. It is not hard to see that a graph is bipartite if and only
if it is 2-colourable. r-colourable graphs are also called r−partite graphs.
A graph G is said to have chromatic number x if x is the smallest number of colours required to
colour G. The chromatic number of a graph G is denoted as χ(G).

• Connectivity:
A path in a graph G is a set of vertices u1 , u2 , · · · , ul of l + 1 distinct vertices such that ui and ui+1
have an edge between them for all 1 ≤ i < l. In other words, a path is a subgraph of G isomorphic

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 to Pl for some l ≥ 1. Often, we say that there is a walk from u1 to ul , even though there is no notion
of a starting and an ending point. A walk is similar to a path, except now we can repeat vertices.
It is not hard to see that there is a path from u to v if and only if there is a walk from u to v.
Two points u and v in G are said to be connected if there is a walk (or equivalently, a path) from
u to v. A graph G is connected if any two vertices in G are connected. Otherwise, the graph is
disconnected. We also have the notion of connected components. A connected component is a
maximal connected subgraph of G.

• Trees and Forests :

A forest is a graph without any cycles. A tree is a connected forest. We can show that a tree on n
vertices has n − 1 edges. Try it as an exercise (hint : induction; show that a tree on n + 1 vertices
has a vertex of degree 1, and remove it).

• Girth:
The girth of a graph G is defined as the length of the smallest cycles in G. The girth of an acyclic
graph is defined as infinity.

• Matching:
A matching M in a graph G is a set of edges in G such that no two edges share an endpoint. In
harder words, a matching M in a graph G is a subgraph in which every vertex has degree at most 1.
A perfect matching M ∗ in a graph G is a matching in G such that every vertex occurs in some
edge of M ∗ . In harder words, a matching M in a graph G is a subgraph in which every vertex has
degree exactly 1. Note that this immediately means that a graph with an odd number of vertices
cannot have a perfect matching.