Archive for the ‘2009’ Category

Mitsugu Hirasaka, Finding n such that every transitive permutation group of degree n is multiplicity-free

Friday, April 10th, 2009
Finding n such that every transitive permutation group of degree n is multiplicity-free
Mitsugu Hirasaka
Department of Mathematics, Pusan National University, Pusan, Korea
2009/5/1 Friday 4PM-5PM
This is a joint work with Cai-Heng Li. Let \mathcal{MF} denote the set of positive integers n such that each transitive action of degree n is multiplicity-free, and \mathcal{PQ} denote the set of n\in \mathbb{N} such that n=pq for some primes p, q with p<q[/latex] and [latex](p,q-1)=1[/latex] where (m,l) is the greatest common divisor of m and n. Our main result shows that [latex]\mathcal{PQ}\backslash \mathcal{MF}[/latex] is the union of <center>[latex]\{pq\in \mathcal{PQ}\mid (p,q-2)=p, q\mbox{ is a Fermat prime}\} and
\{pq\in \mathcal{PQ}\mid q=2p-1\}
where its proof owes much to classification of finite simple groups.

Tommy R. Jensen, The Cycle Double Cover Problem for graphs

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
The Cycle Double Cover Problem for graphs
Tommy R. Jensen
Department of Mathematics, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea
2009/04/24 Friday 4PM-5PM

The Cycle Double Cover Problem in Graph Theory suggests that all 2-connected graphs share a certain property with 2-connected planar maps. Such a map clearly contains a collection of cycles, indeed the boundary cycles of its faces, such that each edge belongs to exactly
two of them. The generalization of this property to nonplanar graphs remains one of the central open problems in Graph Theory.

We investigate this problem by generalizing a suitable variation of the statement of another almost obvious property of planar maps, namely the Jordan Curve Theorem. The generalization suggests a new conjecture which is much stronger than the Cycle Double Cover Conjecture. In fact it would imply a very strong form of the Cycle Double Cover Conjecture, suggesting that every cycle in a 2-connected graph appears in at least one cycle double cover of the graph.

We prove the stronger conjecture in a few important special cases.

Eric Vigoda, Markov Chain Monte Carlo and Approximating the Permanent

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
Markov Chain Monte Carlo and Approximating the Permanent
Eric Vigoda
College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA
2009/04/13 Monday 5PM-6PM
The Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method is a widely-used algorithmic approach for randomly sampling from and estimating the cardinality of large sets. In this talk I will give an introduction to the MCMC approach. Then I will explain a more sophisticated variant that gives a polynomial-time algorithm to approximate the permanent of a non-negative matrix. In graph-theoretic terminology, the permanent corresponds to the number of perfect matchings of a bipartite graph.

Mark H. Siggers, CSP Dichotomy and the Fibre Construction

Monday, March 30th, 2009
CSP Dichotomy and the Fibre Construction
Mark H. Siggers
Department of Mathematics, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea
2009/04/10 Friday 4PM-5PM (Room 2411)
In recent years Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs) have gained popularity among graph theorists due to the fact that they can be viewed as a generalisation of graph homomorphism problems. An important conjecture in the field is the CSP Dichotomy Classification Conjecture. Much of the recent progress towards a solution to this conjecture has come from the field universal algebra, and the statement of the Classification Conjecture requires a fair bit of algebraic language.

We talk about a recent graph theoretic construction, called the fibre construction, which can be used to get some of the important results achieved with universal algebra. This construction provides combinatorial version of the Classification Conjecture, and allows one to easily address restricted versions of the Conjecture. Further it leads to results unexpected by the universal algebra community.

Much of the material covered is joint work with Jaroslav Nešetřil and László Zádori.

Jack Koolen, Some topics in spectral graph theory

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
Some topics in spectral graph theory
Jack Koolen
Department of Mathematics, POSTECH, Pohang, Korea
2009/03/27 Fri 5PM-6PM (Room 2411)
In spectral graph theory one studies the eigenvalues (and spectrum) of the adjacency matrix and how they are related with combinatorial properties of the underlying graph.
In this talk, I will discuss several topics in spectral graph theory.