INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMPUTER APPLICATION

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ISSUE 2, VOLUME 6 (December 2012)

ISSN: 2250-1797

A RESULT ON HALIN AND HAMILTONIAN GRAPHS

S. Venu Madava Sarma
Assistant Professor of Mathematics,
K. L. University,Vaddeswaram, Guntur District
India
T. V. PRADEEP KUMAR,
Assistant Professor of Mathematics,
A.N.U College of Engineering & Technology,
Acharya Nagarjuna University.
ABSTRACT
In 1856, Hamiltonian introduced the Hamiltonian Graph where a Graph which is covered all the
vertices without repetition and end with starting vertex. In this paper I would like to proved Every
Halin Graph is an Hamiltonian Graph with greater than or equal to three vertices.
Key words: Graph, Euler Graph, Hamiltonian graph, Regular Graph, Complete Graph.
1. Introduction:

The origin of graph theory started with the problem of Koinsber bridge, in 1735.
This problem lead to the concept of Eulerian Graph. Euler studied the problem of Koinsberg
bridge and constructed a structure to solve the problem called Eulerian graph.
In 1840, A.F Mobius gave the idea of complete graph and bipartite graph and Kuratowski proved
that they are planar by means of recreational problems.
The concept of tree, (a connected graph without cycles was implemented by Gustav Kirchhoff in
1845, and he employed graph theoretical ideas in the calculation of currents in electrical
networks or circuits.
In 1852, Thomas Gutherie found the famous four color problem.
Then in 1856, Thomas. P. Kirkman and William R.Hamilton studied cycles on polyhydra and
invented the concept called Hamiltonian graph by studying trips that visited certain sites exactly
once.
In 1913, H.Dudeney mentioned a puzzle problem. Eventhough the four color problem was
invented it was solved only after a century by Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken.
This time is considered as the birth of Graph Theory.
Caley studied particular analytical forms from differential calculus to study the trees. This had
many implications in theoretical chemistry. This lead to the invention of enumerative graph
theory.
Any how the term Graph was introduced by Sylvester in 1878 where he drew an analogy
between Quantic invariants and covariants of algebra and molecular diagrams.
In 1941, Ramsey worked on colorations which lead to the identification of another branch of
graph theory called extremel graph theory.
In 1969, the four color problem was solved using computers by Heinrich. The study of
asymptotic graph connectivity gave rise to random graph theory.
In 1971 R.Halin introduced an example of minimally 3- connected Graphs.
1.1 Definition: A graph usually denoted G(V,E) or G = (V,E) consists of set of vertices V
together with a set of edges E. The number of vertices in a graph is usually denoted n while the
number of edges is usually denoted m.
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1.2 Definition: Vertices are also known as nodes, points and (in social networks) as actors,
agents or players.
1.3 Definition: Edges are also known as lines and (in social networks) as ties or links. An edge
e = (u,v) is defined by the unordered pair of vertices that serve as its end points.
1.4 Example: The graph depicted in Figure 1 has vertex set V={a,b,c,d,e.f} and edge set
E = {(a,b),(b,c),(c,d),(c,e),(d,e),(e,f)}.
d

Figure 1.
1. 5 Definition: Two vertices u and v are adjacent if there exists an edge (u,v) that connects
them.
1.6 Definition: An edge (u,v) is said to be incident upon nodes u and v.
1.7 Definition: An edge e = (u,u) that links a vertex to itself is known as a self-loop or reflexive
tie.
1.8 Definition: Every graph has associated with it an adjacency matrix, which is a binary nn
matrix A in which aij = 1 and aji = 1 if vertex vi is adjacent to vertex vj, and aij = 0 and aji = 0
otherwise. The natural graphical representation of an adjacency matrix is a table, such as shown
below.
a b c d e f
a 0 1 0 0 0 0
b 1 0 1 0 0 0
c 0 1 0 1 1 0
d 0 0 1 0 1 0
e 0 0 1 1 0 1
f 0 0 0 0 1 0
Adjacency matrix for graph in Figure 1.
1.9 Definition: Examining either Figure 1 or given adjacency Matrix, we can see that not every
vertex is adjacent to every other. A graph in which all vertices are adjacent to all others is said to
be complete.
1.10 Definition: While not every vertex in the graph in Figure 1 is adjacent, one can construct a
sequence of adjacent vertices from any vertex to any other. Graphs with this property are called
connected.
1.11 Note: Reachability. Similarly, any pair of vertices in which one vertex can reach the other
via a sequence of adjacent vertices is called reachable. If we determine reachability for every
pair of vertices, we can construct a reachability matrix R such as depicted in Figure 2. The
matrix R can be thought of as the result of applying transitive closure to the adjacency matrix A.

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c
g

Figure: 2
1.12 Definition : A walk is closed if vo = vn.degree of the vertex and is denoted d(v).
1.13 Definition : A tree is a connected graph that contains no cycles. In a tree, every pair of
points is connected by a unique path. That is, there is only one way to get from A to B.

Figure 3: A labeled tree with

6 vertices and 5 edges
1.14 Definition: A spanning tree for a graph G is a sub-graph of G which is a tree that includes
every vertex of G.
1.15 Definition: The length of a walk (and therefore a path or trail) is defined as the number of
edges it contains. For example, in Figure 3, the path a,b,c,d,e has length 4.
1.16 Definition: The number of vertices adjacent to a given vertex is called the degree of the
vertex and is denoted d(v).
1.17 Definition : In the mathematical field of graph theory, a bipartite graph (or bigraph) is a
graph whose vertices can be divided into two disjoint sets U and V such that every edge connects
a vertex in U to one in V; that is, U and V are independent sets. Equivalently, a bipartite graph is
a graph that does not contain any odd-length cycles.

Figure 4: Example of a bipartite graph.

1.18 Definition : An Eulerian circuit in a graph G is circuit which includes every vertex and
every edge of G. It may pass through a vertex more than once, but because it is a circuit it
traverse each edge exactly once. A graph which has an Eulerian circuit is called an Eulerian

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graph. An Eulerian path in a graph G is a walk which passes through every vertex of G and
which traverses each edge of G exactly once
1.19 Example : Knigsberg bridge problem: The city of Knigsberg (now Kaliningrad) had
seven bridges on the Pregel River. People were wondering whether it would be possible to take a
walk through the city passing exactly once on each bridge. Euler built the representative graph,
observed that it had vertices of odd degree, and proved that this made such a walk impossible.
Does there exist a walk crossing each of the seven bridges of Knigsberg exactly once?

Figure 5: Konigsberg problem

2. Hamiltonian Graphs, Halin Graphs and Relation between them
In this section we prove the result Every Halin Graph having 3 vertices is Hamiltonian.
2.1 Definition : A Hamilton circuit is a path that visits every vertex in the graph exactly once
and return to the starting vertex. Determining whether such paths or circuits exist is an NPcomplete problem. In the diagram below, an example Hamilton Circuit would be
2.2 Example :

Figure 6: Hamilton Circuit would be AEFGCDBA.

2.3 Definition : A finite tree T without vertices of degree 2 be drawn in the plane.
Then draw in the place a cycle C which has exactly the leaves of T as its vertices such that the
resulting graph H = T
C remains a plannar. Then H is a Halin Graph.
2.4 Example:

Figure 7: Halin Graph

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2.5Result : Every Halin Graph having 3 vertices is Hamiltonian.

Proof : If the Halin Graphs G is also known as Halin.
We have to prove that G is Hamiltonian.
Let G be a Halin graph with vertices having greater than or equal to 3 vertices with C1 and C
as its inner and outer cycles respectively.

Figure 8
Let a be a vertex on C1 and let b C1 be a neighbour of a.
If b C, the union of all paths b to C , which is not contain a is a tree Tb.
This tree plus the edges on C between its leaves defines a reduced Haling Graph H b.
We replace Hb by a single vertex b1C, adjacent with a C1.
If b C, we keep the edge ab.
After doing this with all vertices of C1,
G reduces to a simple Halin graph consisting of the two cycles C and C1and of edges
between the two cycles, such that the outer cycle has only vertices of degree 3.
A Hamiltonian Graph is shown as follows.

Figure 9
Therefore G is a Hamiltonian Graph..
References :
[1] C. A. Barefoot, Hamiltonian connectivity of the Halin graphs, Congressus nu- merantium 58
(1987), 93-102.
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[2] D. Barnette and G. Wegner, Hamiltonian circuits in simple 3-polytope with up to 26 vertices,
Israel J. Math. 19 (1974), 212-216.
[3] J. A. Bondy and L. Lovasz, Lengths of cycles in Halin graphs, J. Graph Theory 8 (1985),
397-410.
[4] J. Bosak, Hamiltonian lines in cubic graphs, Proc. Internet. Sympos. Theory of Graphs
(1966), 35-46.
[5] J. W. Butler, Hamiltonian circuits on simple 3-polytopes, J. Combin. Theory B 15 (1973), 6973.
[6] R. Halin, Studies on minimally nconnected graphs, Combinatorial Mathemat- ics and its
Applications (Proc. conf., Oxford, 1969), Academic Press, London (1971), 129-136.
[7] D. A. Holton and B. D. McKay, The smallest non-Hamiltonian 3-connected cubic planar
graphs have 38 vertices, J. Comb. Theory B 45 (1988), 305-319. Erratum in J. Comb. Theory B
47 (1989), 248.
[8] Venu Madhava Sarma.S and T.V. Pradeep Kumar International Journal of Mathematical
Archive-2(12), 2011,Page 2538-2542.
[9] Venu Madhava Sarma.S International Journal of Computer Application, Issue 2, Volume 1
(February 2012) , Page 21-31.
[10] Venu Madhava Sarma.S and T.V.Pradeep Kumar International J. of Math. Sci. & Engg.
Appls. (IJMSEA) ISSN 0973-9424, Vol. 6 No. III (May, 2012), pp. 47-54
[11] Venu Madhava Sarma.S and T.V.Pradeep Kumar proceedings of Two Day UGC National
seminar on Modern Trends in Mathematics and Physical Sciences ( NSMTMPS 2012) dated
20th , 21st Jan, 2012.

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