Open Mathematics (Jan 2016)

Hamilton cycles in almost distance-hereditary graphs

  • Chen Bing,
  • Ning Bo

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1515/math-2016-0003
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14, no. 1
pp. 19 – 28

Abstract

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Let G be a graph on n ≥ 3 vertices. A graph G is almost distance-hereditary if each connected induced subgraph H of G has the property dH(x, y) ≤ dG(x, y) + 1 for any pair of vertices x, y ∈ V(H). Adopting the terminology introduced by Broersma et al. and Čada, a graph G is called 1-heavy if at least one of the end vertices of each induced subgraph of G isomorphic to K1,3 (a claw) has degree at least n/2, and is called claw-heavy if each claw of G has a pair of end vertices with degree sum at least n. In this paper we prove the following two theorems: (1) Every 2-connected, claw-heavy and almost distance-hereditary graph is Hamiltonian. (2) Every 3-connected, 1-heavy and almost distance-hereditary graph is Hamiltonian. The first result improves a previous theorem of Feng and Guo [J.-F. Feng and Y.-B. Guo, Hamiltonian cycle in almost distance-hereditary graphs with degree condition restricted to claws, Optimazation57 (2008), no. 1, 135–141]. For the second result, its connectedness condition is sharp since Feng and Guo constructed a 2-connected 1-heavy graph which is almost distance-hereditary but not Hamiltonian.

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