Graph Coloring, Zero Forcing, and Related Problems

dc.contributor.authorBrimkov, Borisen_US
dc.date.accessioned2018-06-26T13:59:54Zen_US
dc.date.available2018-06-26T13:59:54Zen_US
dc.date.issued2017-05en_US
dc.date.noteMay 2017en_US
dc.descriptionThis work was also published as a Rice University thesis/dissertation.en_US
dc.description.abstractThis thesis investigates several problems related to classical and dynamic coloring of graphs, and enumeration of graph attributes. In the first part of the thesis, I present new efficient methods to compute the chromatic and flow polynomials of specific families of graphs. The chromatic and ow polynomials count the number of ways to color and assign ow to the graph, and encode information relevant to various physical applications. The second part of the thesis focuses on zero forcing-- a dynamic graph coloring process whereby at each discrete time step, a colored vertex with a single uncolored neighbor forces that neighbor to become colored. Zero forcing has applications in linear algebra, quantum control, and power network monitoring. A connected forcing set is a connected set of initially colored vertices which forces the entire graph to become colored; the connected forcing number is the cardinality of the smallest connected forcing set. I present a variety of structural results about connected forcing, such as the effects of vertex and edge operations on the connected forcing number, the relations between the connected forcing number and other graph parameters, and the computational complexity of connected forcing. I also give efficient algorithms for computing the connected forcing numbers of different families of graphs, and characterize the graphs with extremal connected forcing numbers. Finally, I investigate several enumeration problems associated with zero forcing, such as the exponential growth of certain families of forcing sets, relations of families of forcing sets to matroids and greedoids, and polynomials which count the number of distinct forcing sets of a given size.en_US
dc.format.extent215 ppen_US
dc.identifier.citationBrimkov, Boris. "Graph Coloring, Zero Forcing, and Related Problems." (2017) <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/102270">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/102270</a>.en_US
dc.identifier.digitalTR18-01en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/102270en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.titleGraph Coloring, Zero Forcing, and Related Problemsen_US
dc.typeTechnical reporten_US
dc.type.dcmiTexten_US
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