Feedback Arc Sets and Girth in Digraphs

Given a directed graph G with girth at least m+1 (and no parallel edges), let b(G) denote the size of the smallest subset X of the edges of G so that G X has no directed cycles, and let c(G) be the number of non-edges (unordered pairs of vertices with no edge between them).
Prior joint work with Maria Chudnovsky and Paul Seymour showed that when m = 3, b(G) is at most c(G), and we conjectured b(G) is actually at most c(G)/2.
Can one say anything stronger if m is greater than three? In this talk, I will discuss a new conjecture giving a ratio between b(G) and c(G), namely
b(G) is at most 2c(G) / (m2-m-1), for all m which are at least three. The talk will also cover two new results in this direction: that b(G) is at most c(G)/3 when m is at least four, and for circular interval graphs, a generalization of previous methods which gives a new bound for all m.

Speaker Details

Blair D. Sullivan is currently a fourth year Ph.D. student in the Mathematics Department at Princeton University, working with Paul Seymour. She holds bachelors degrees in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology. Although her recent research has been concentrated on extremal problems in directed graph theory, she is interested in a variety of problems in combinatorics, especially those with connections to number theory.

Date:
Speakers:
Blair D. Sullivan
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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