Operations on Graphs Increasing Some Graph Parameters

Alexander Kelmans

Published 2011-09-21, updated 2013-12-21Version 3

In this partly expository paper we discuss and describe some of our old and recent results on partial orders on the set (m,n)-graphs (i.e. graphs with n vertices and m edges) and some operations on graphs that are monotone with respect to these partial orders. The partial orders under consideration include those related with some Laplacian characteristics of graphs as well as with some probabilistic characteristics of graphs with randomly deleted edges. Section 2 provides some notions, notation, and simple observations. Section 3 contains some basic facts on the Laplacian polynomial of a graph. Section 4 describes various graph operation and their properties. In Section 5 we introduce some partial orders on the set of (m,n)-graphs related, in particular, with the graph Laplacian and the graph reliability (Laplacian posets and reliability posets}). Section 6 contains some old and recent results on the monotonicity of some graph operations with respect to Laplacian posets. Section 7 and 8 include some old and recent results on the monotonicity of some graph operations with respect to reliability posets and to some other parameters of graphs as well as some open problems. Section 9 contains some generalizations of the described results on weighted graphs. Keywords: graph, graph operations, graph posets, random graphs, decomposable graphs, threshold graphs, weighted graphs, spanning subgraphs, Laplacian polynomial and spectrum, adjacency polynomial and spectrum, graph reliability, trees, forests, Hamiltonian cycle and path, symmetric polynomials