Graph & Graph Models

The previous part brought forth the different tools for reasoning, proofing and problem solving. In this
part, we will study the discrete structures that form the basis of formulating many a real-life problem.

The two discrete structures that we will cover are graphs and trees. A graph is a set of points, called
nodes or vertices, which are interconnected by a set of lines called edges. The study of graphs, or graph
theory is an important part of a number of disciplines in the fields of mathematics, engineering and
computer science.

What is a Graph?
Definition − A graph (denoted as G = (V , E)) consists of a non-empty set of vertices or nodes V and
a set of edges E.

Example − Let us consider, a Graph is G = (V , E) where V = {a, b, c, d} and

E = {{a, b}, {a, c}, {b, c}, {c, d}}

Degree of a Vertex − The degree of a vertex V of a graph G (denoted by deg (V)) is the number of edges
incident with the vertex V.

Vertex Degree Even / Odd

a 2 even

b 2 even

c 3 odd

d 1 odd

Even and Odd Vertex − If the degree of a vertex is even, the vertex is called an even vertex and if the
degree of a vertex is odd, the vertex is called an odd vertex.

Degree of a Graph − The degree of a graph is the largest vertex degree of that graph. For the above
graph the degree of the graph is 3.
The Handshaking Lemma − In a graph, the sum of all the degrees of all the vertices is equal to twice the
number of edges.

Types of Graphs
There are different types of graphs, which we will learn in the following section.

Null Graph
A null graph has no edges. The null graph of n vertices is denoted by Nn

Simple Graph
A graph is called simple graph/strict graph if the graph is undirected and does not contain any loops or
multiple edges.

Multi-Graph
If in a graph multiple edges between the same set of vertices are allowed, it is called Multigraph. In
other words, it is a graph having at least one loop or multiple edges.
Directed and Undirected Graph
A graph G = (V , E) is called a directed graph if the edge set is made of ordered vertex pair and a
graph is called undirected if the edge set is made of unordered vertex pair.

Connected and Disconnected Graph

A graph is connected if any two vertices of the graph are connected by a path; while a graph is
disconnected if at least two vertices of the graph are not connected by a path. If a graph G is
disconnected, then every maximal connected subgraph of G is called a connected component of the
graph G.
Regular Graph
A graph is regular if all the vertices of the graph have the same degree. In a regular graph G of degree r,
the degree of each vertex of G is r.

Complete Graph
A graph is called complete graph if every two vertices pair are joined by exactly one edge. The complete
graph with n vertices is denoted by Kn
Cycle Graph
If a graph consists of a single cycle, it is called cycle graph. The cycle graph with n vertices is denoted
by Cn

Bipartite Graph
If the vertex-set of a graph G can be split into two disjoint sets, V1 and V2 , in such a way that each edge
in the graph joins a vertex in V1 to a vertex in V2 , and there are no edges in G that connect two vertices
in V1 or two vertices in V2 , then the graph G is called a bipartite graph.
Complete Bipartite Graph
A complete bipartite graph is a bipartite graph in which each vertex in the first set is joined to every
single vertex in the second set. The complete bipartite graph is denoted by Kx,y where the graph G
contains x vertices in the first set and y vertices in the second set.

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Representation of Graphs
There are mainly two ways to represent a graph −

Adjacency Matrix

Adjacency List

Adjacency Matrix
An Adjacency Matrix A[V ][V ] is a 2D array of size V × V where V is the number of vertices in a
undirected graph. If there is an edge between Vx to Vy then the value of A[Vx ][Vy ] = 1 and
A[Vy ][Vx ] = 1 , otherwise the value will be zero. And for a directed graph, if there is an edge between
Vx to Vy , then the value of A[Vx ][Vy ] = 1 , otherwise the value will be zero.

Adjacency Matrix of an Undirected Graph

Let us consider the following undirected graph and construct the adjacency matrix −
Adjacency matrix of the above undirected graph will be −

a b c d

a 0 1 1 0

b 1 0 1 0

c 1 1 0 1

d 0 0 1 0

Adjacency Matrix of a Directed Graph

Let us consider the following directed graph and construct its adjacency matrix −

Adjacency matrix of the above directed graph will be −

a b c d

a 0 1 1 0

b 0 0 1 0
 c 0 0 0 1

d 0 0 0 0

Adjacency List
In adjacency list, an array (A[V ]) of linked lists is used to represent the graph G with V number of
vertices. An entry A[Vx ] represents the linked list of vertices adjacent to the V x − th vertex. The
adjacency list of the undirected graph is as shown in the figure below −

Planar vs. Non-planar graph

Planar graph − A graph G is called a planar graph if it can be drawn in a plane without any edges
crossed. If we draw graph in the plane without edge crossing, it is called embedding the graph in the
plane.

Non-planar graph − A graph is non-planar if it cannot be drawn in a plane without graph edges crossing.
Isomorphism
If two graphs G and H contain the same number of vertices connected in the same way, they are called
isomorphic graphs (denoted by G ≅H ).

It is easier to check non-isomorphism than isomorphism. If any of these following conditions occurs,
then two graphs are non-isomorphic −

The number of connected components are different

Vertex-set cardinalities are different

Edge-set cardinalities are different

Degree sequences are different

Example
The following graphs are isomorphic −

Homomorphism
A homomorphism from a graph G to a graph H is a mapping (May not be a bijective mapping)
h : G → H such that − (x, y) ∈ E(G) → (h(x), h(y)) ∈ E(H) . It maps adjacent vertices of
graph G to the adjacent vertices of the graph H .

Properties of Homomorphisms
 A homomorphism is an isomorphism if it is a bijective mapping.

Homomorphism always preserves edges and connectedness of a graph.

The compositions of homomorphisms are also homomorphisms.

To find out if there exists any homomorphic graph of another graph is a NPcomplete problem.

Euler Graphs
A connected graph G is called an Euler graph, if there is a closed trail which includes every edge of the
graph G. An Euler path is a path that uses every edge of a graph exactly once. An Euler path starts and
ends at different vertices.

An Euler circuit is a circuit that uses every edge of a graph exactly once. An Euler circuit always starts
and ends at the same vertex. A connected graph G is an Euler graph if and only if all vertices of G are
of even degree, and a connected graph G is Eulerian if and only if its edge set can be decomposed into
cycles.

The above graph is an Euler graph as “a 1 b 2 c 3 d 4 e 5 c 6 f 7 g” covers all the edges of the graph.

Hamiltonian Graphs
A connected graph G is called Hamiltonian graph if there is a cycle which includes every vertex of G
and the cycle is called Hamiltonian cycle. Hamiltonian walk in graph G is a walk that passes through
each vertex exactly once.

n
If G is a simple graph with n vertices, where n ≥ 3 If deg(v) ≥ 2
for each vertex v, then the graph G
is Hamiltonian graph. This is called Dirac's Theorem.

If G is a simple graph with n vertices, where n ≥ 2 if deg(x) + deg(y) ≥ n for each pair of non-
adjacent vertices x and y, then the graph G is Hamiltonian graph. This is called Ore's theorem.
 Discrete Mathematics - More On Graphs
Graph Coloring
Graph coloring is the procedure of assignment of colors to each vertex of a graph G such that no
adjacent vertices get same color. The objective is to minimize the number of colors while coloring a
graph. The smallest number of colors required to color a graph G is called its chromatic number of that
graph. Graph coloring problem is a NP Complete problem.

Method to Color a Graph

The steps required to color a graph G with n number of vertices are as follows −

Step 1 − Arrange the vertices of the graph in some order.

Step 2 − Choose the first vertex and color it with the first color.

Step 3 − Choose the next vertex and color it with the lowest numbered color that has not been colored
on any vertices adjacent to it. If all the adjacent vertices are colored with this color, assign a new color
to it. Repeat this step until all the vertices are colored.

Example

In the above figure, at first vertex a is colored red. As the adjacent vertices of vertex a are again
adjacent, vertex b and vertex d are colored with different color, green and blue respectively. Then vertex
c is colored as red as no adjacent vertex of c is colored red. Hence, we could color the graph by 3
colors. Hence, the chromatic number of the graph is 3.

Applications of Graph Coloring

Some applications of graph coloring include −
 Register Allocation

Map Coloring

Bipartite Graph Checking

Mobile Radio Frequency Assignment

Making time table, etc.

Graph Traversal
Graph traversal is the problem of visiting all the vertices of a graph in some systematic order. There are
mainly two ways to traverse a graph.

Breadth First Search

Depth First Search

Breadth First Search

Breadth First Search (BFS) starts at starting level-0 vertex X of the graph G. Then we visit all the
vertices that are the neighbors of X . After visiting, we mark the vertices as "visited," and place them
into level-1. Then we start from the level-1 vertices and apply the same method on every level-1 vertex
and so on. The BFS traversal terminates when every vertex of the graph has been visited.

BFS Algorithm

The concept is to visit all the neighbor vertices before visiting other neighbor vertices of neighbor
vertices.

Initialize status of all nodes as “Ready”.

Put source vertex in a queue and change its status to “Waiting”.

Repeat the following two steps until queue is empty −

Remove the first vertex from the queue and mark it as “Visited”.
Add to the rear of queue all neighbors of the removed vertex whose status is “Ready”.
Mark their status as “Waiting”.

Problem

Let us take a graph (Source vertex is ‘a’) and apply the BFS algorithm to find out the traversal order.
Solution −

Initialize status of all vertices to “Ready”.

Put a in queue and change its status to “Waiting”.

Remove a from queue, mark it as “Visited”.

Add a’s neighbors in “Ready” state b, d and e to end of queue and mark them as “Waiting”.

Remove b from queue, mark it as “Visited”, put its “Ready” neighbor c at end of queue and mark
c as “Waiting”.

Remove d from queue and mark it as “Visited”. It has no neighbor in “Ready” state.
Remove e from queue and mark it as “Visited”. It has no neighbor in “Ready” state.

Remove c from queue and mark it as “Visited”. It has no neighbor in “Ready” state.

Queue is empty so stop.

So the traversal order is −

a→b→d→e→c

The alternate orders of traversal are −

a→b→e→d→c

Or, a→d→b→e→c

Or, a→e→b→d→c

Or, a→b→e→d→c

Or, a→d→e→b→c

Application of BFS
 Finding the shortest path

Minimum spanning tree for un-weighted graph

GPS navigation system

Detecting cycles in an undirected graph

Finding all nodes within one connected component

Complexity Analysis

Let G(V , E) be a graph with |V | number of vertices and |E| number of edges. If breadth first search
algorithm visits every vertex in the graph and checks every edge, then its time complexity would be −

O(|V | + |E|). O(|E|)

It may vary between O(1) and O(|V 2|)

Depth First Search

Depth First Search (DFS) algorithm starts from a vertex v, then it traverses to its adjacent vertex (say x)
that has not been visited before and mark as "visited" and goes on with the adjacent vertex of x and so
on.

If at any vertex, it encounters that all the adjacent vertices are visited, then it backtracks until it finds the
first vertex having an adjacent vertex that has not been traversed before. Then, it traverses that vertex,
continues with its adjacent vertices until it traverses all visited vertices and has to backtrack again. In
this way, it will traverse all the vertices reachable from the initial vertex v.

DFS Algorithm

The concept is to visit all the neighbor vertices of a neighbor vertex before visiting the other neighbor
vertices.

Initialize status of all nodes as “Ready”

Put source vertex in a stack and change its status to “Waiting”

Repeat the following two steps until stack is empty −

Pop the top vertex from the stack and mark it as “Visited”
Push onto the top of the stack all neighbors of the removed vertex whose status is
“Ready”. Mark their status as “Waiting”.

Problem

Let us take a graph (Source vertex is ‘a’) and apply the DFS algorithm to find out the traversal order.
Solution

Initialize status of all vertices to “Ready”.

Push a in stack and change its status to “Waiting”.

Pop a and mark it as “Visited”.

Push a’s neighbors in “Ready” state e, d and b to top of stack and mark them as “Waiting”.

Pop b from stack, mark it as “Visited”, push its “Ready” neighbor c onto stack.
Pop c from stack and mark it as “Visited”. It has no “Ready” neighbor.

Pop d from stack and mark it as “Visited”. It has no “Ready” neighbor.

Pop e from stack and mark it as “Visited”. It has no “Ready” neighbor.

Stack is empty. So stop.

So the traversal order is −

a→b→c→d→e

The alternate orders of traversal are −

a→e→b→c→d

Or, a→b→e→c→d

Or, a→d→e→b→c

Or, a→d→c→e→b

Or, a→d→c→b→e

Complexity Analysis

Let G(V , E) be a graph with |V | number of vertices and |E| number of edges. If DFS algorithm visits
every vertex in the graph and checks every edge, then the time complexity is −
 ⊝(|V | + |E|)

Applications

Detecting cycle in a graph

To find topological sorting

To test if a graph is bipartite

Finding connected components

Finding the bridges of a graph

Finding bi-connectivity in graphs

Solving the Knight’s Tour problem

Solving puzzles with only one solution