Characterizations of kites as graceful graphs

Abstract

We introduce and study an infinite family of graceful graphs, which we call kites. The kites are graphs where a path is joined with a graph "forming" a kite. We study and characterize three classes of the kites: kites formed by cycles known to be graceful, fan kites and lantern kites. Beside showing in a transparent way that all these graphs are graceful, we provide characterizations of these graphs among all simple graphs via three tools: via Sheppard's labelling sequences introduced in the 1970s and via labelling relations and graph chessboards. The latter are relatively new tools for the study of graceful graphs introduced by Haviar and Iva\v ska in 2015. The labelling relations are closely related to Sheppard's labelling sequences while the graph chessboards provide a~nice visualization of the graceful labellings.

Keywords

• graph
• graceful labelling
• graph chessboard
• labelling sequence
• labelling relation