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33 views3 pages

Hamiltonian Graphs

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basakgourab00
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MIT 18.

211: COMBINATORIAL ANALYSIS

FELIX GOTTI

Lecture 22: Hamiltonian Cycles and Paths


In this lecture, we discuss the notions of Hamiltonian cycles and paths in the context
of both undirected and directed graphs.
Hamiltonian Cycles and Paths. Let G be a graph. A cycle in G is a closed trail that
only repeats the first and last vertices. A Hamiltonian cycle (resp., a Hamiltonian path)
in G is a cycle (resp., a path) that visits all the vertices of G. As for (closed) Eulerian
trails, we are interested in the question of whether a given graph has a Hamiltonian
cycle/path.
Definition 1. A simple graph that has a Hamiltonian cycle is called a Hamiltonian
graph.
We observe that not every graph is Hamiltonian; for instance, it is clear that a dis-
connected graph cannot contain any Hamiltonian cycle/path. There are also connected
graphs that are not Hamiltonian. For example, if a connected graph has a a vertex of
degree one, then it cannot be Hamiltonian.
Example 2. A cycle on n vertices has exactly one cycle, which is a Hamiltonian cycle.
Then cycles are Hamiltonian graphs.
Example 3. The complete graph Kn is Hamiltonian if and only if n ≥ 3.
The following proposition provides a condition under which we can always guarantee
that a graph is Hamiltonian.
Proposition 4. Fix n ∈ N with n ≥ 3, and let G = (V, E) be a simple graph with
|V | ≥ n. If deg v ≥ n/2 for all v ∈ V , then G is Hamiltonian.
Proof. Suppose, by way of contradiction, that there exists a graph satisfying the hy-
pothesis of the proposition that is not Hamiltonian. Among all such graph assume
that G is one which minimizes the number of vertices. After adding as many edges as
necessary, we can replace G by a graph G0 = (V, E 0 ) with no Hamiltonian cycles and
deg v ≥ n/2 for all v ∈ V , which also satisfies the condition that any graph obtained
from G0 by adding a new edge will contain a Hamiltonian cycle.
Since n ≥ 3 and G0 does not have any Hamiltonian cycle, we can pick two distinct
vertices v, w ∈ V that are not adjacent. As including an edge between v and w would
1
2 F. GOTTI

create a Hamiltonian cycle, there must be a Hamiltonian path from v to w, namely,


v1 v2 . . . vn with v1 = v and vn = w. Now consider the sets
X := {i ∈ J2, n − 1K | vi w ∈ E 0 } and Y := {i ∈ J2, n − 1K | vi+1 v ∈ E 0 }.
Since v = v1 , v2 , . . . , vn−1 , vn = w is a Hamiltonian path and the vertices v and w are
not adjacent, |X| = deg w and |Y | = deg v. Thus,
|X ∩ Y | = |X| + |Y | − |X ∪ Y | = deg w + deg v − |X ∪ Y | ≥ n − |X ∪ Y | ≥ 2,
where the last inequality follows from the fact that X ∪ Y ⊆ J2, n − 1K and, therefore,
|X ∪ Y | ≤ n − 2. Thus, X ∩ Y is nonempty. Now one can take j ∈ X ∩ Y to obtain
the following Hamiltonian cycle: v1 v2 . . . vj vn vn−1 vj+1 v1 , which is a contradiction. 

Directed Graphs. Now we consider Hamiltonian cycles in directed graphs. A di-


rected graph is called a tournament if there is a directed edge between any two ver-
tices.
 Observe that a directed graph (V, E) is a tournament if and only if it contains
n
2
edges, where n = |V |.
Proposition 5. Every tournament has a Hamiltonian path.
Proof. We proceed by induction on the number of vertices of a tournament. It is clear
that a tournament with two (or one) vertices has a Hamiltonian path. Suppose that ev-
ery tournament with n ≥ 2 vertices has a Hamiltonian path. Let G = (V, E) be a tour-
nament with n + 1 vertices. Fix vn+1 ∈ V , and let H be the subgraph of G induced by
the vertices V \{vn+1 }. It is clear that H is a tournament, and so it follows from our in-
duction hypothesis that H has a Hamiltonian path, namely, C := v1 v2 , v2 v3 , . . . , vn−1 vn .
If outdeg vn+1 = 0, then vn vn+1 ∈ E, and so v1 v2 , v2 v3 , . . . , vn vn+1 is a Hamilton-
ian path of G. Suppose, therefore, that outdeg, vn+1 ≥ 1, and let j ∈ J1, nK be the
smallest index such that vn+1 vj ∈ E. If j = 1, then vn+1 v1 , v1 v2 , . . . , vn−1 vn is a Hamil-
tonian path. Otherwise, the minimality of j guarantees that vj−1 vn+1 ∈ E, and so
v1 v2 , v2 v3 , . . . , vj−1 vn+1 , vn+1 vj , vj vj+1 , . . . , vn−1 vn is a Hamiltonian path. 

Practice Exercises
Exercise 1. Let G be a simple graph with 10 vertices and 28 edges. Prove that G
contains a cycle of length 4.

Exercise 2. [1, Exercise 9.40] How many Hamiltonian cycles does Kn have?
COMBINATORIAL ANALYSIS 3
References
[1] M. Bóna: A Walk Through Combinatorics: An Introduction to Enumeration and Graph Theory
(Fourth Edition), World Scientific, New Jersey, 2017.

Department of Mathematics, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139


Email address: [email protected]

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