On Euler Paths and the Maximum Degree Growth of Iterated Higher Order Line Graphs

2026-02-10

AI Summary

This study investigates the existence of Eulerian trails in the $k$-th iterated line graph $L^k(G)$ of a simple graph $G$, along with the growth behavior of its maximum degree $\Delta(L^k(G))$. Through graph-theoretic analysis, iterative modeling, and combinatorial optimization, the authors establish the first upper bound of $O(nm)$ on the maximum number of iterations $k$ for which an Eulerian trail can exist, and present an $O(n^2m)$-time algorithm to efficiently enumerate all valid $k$. They further demonstrate that for nontrivial connected graphs, the maximum degree grows exponentially with $k$, governed by a rational constant $\mathrm{dgc}(G)$. The work fully characterizes the graph classes achieving the four smallest values of $\mathrm{dgc}(G)$, identifies the anomalous third-smallest value of $5.5$, and proves that $\mathrm{dgc}(G)$ assumes countably infinitely many distinct values within the interval $(7,8)$.

Technology Category

• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Computational Complexity of Reasoning
• Machine Learning: Graph-based Machine Learning
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Graph Mining, Social Network Analysis & Community

Application Category

• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Models for Web evolution
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Incentives in network design for Web infrastructures and ecosystems

Abstract

Given a simple graph $G$, its line graph, denoted by $L(G)$, is obtained by representing each edge of $G$ as a vertex, with two vertices in $L(G)$ adjacent whenever the corresponding edges in $G$ share a common endpoint. By applying the line graph operation repeatedly, we obtain higher order line graphs, denoted by $L^{r}(G)$. In other words, $L^{0}(G) = G$, and for any integer $r \ge 1$, $L^{r}(G) = L(L^{r-1}(G))$. Given a graph $G$ on $n$ vertices, we wish to efficiently find out (i) if $L^k(G)$ has an Euler path, (ii) the value of $\Delta(L^k(G))$. Note that the size of a higher order line graph could be much larger than that of $G$. For the first question, we show that for a graph $G$ with $n$ vertices and $m$ edges the largest $k$ where $L^k(G)$ has an Euler path satisfies $k = \mathcal O(nm)$. We also design an $\mathcal{O}(n^2m)$-time algorithm to output all $k$ such that $L^k(G)$ has an Euler path. For the second question, we study the growth of maximum degree of $L^k(G)$, $k \ge 0$. It is easy to calculate $\Delta(L^k(G))$ when $G$ is a path, cycle or a claw. Any other connected graph is called a prolific graph and we denote the set of all prolific graphs by $\mathcal G$. We extend the works of Hartke and Higgins to show that for any prolific graph $G$, there exists a constant rational number $dgc(G)$ and an integer $k_0$ such that for all $k \ge k_0$, $\Delta(L^k(G)) = dgc(G) \cdot 2^{k-4} + 2$. We show that $\{dgc(G) \mid G \in \mathcal G\}$ has first, second, third, fourth and fifth minimums, namely, $c_1 = 3$, $c_2 = 4$, $c_3 = 5.5$, $c_4 = 6$ and $c_5=7$; the third minimum stands out surprisingly from the other four. Moreover, for $i \in \{1, 2, 3, 4\}$, we provide a complete characterization of $\mathcal G_i = \{dgc(G) = c_i \mid G \in \mathcal G \}$. Apart from this, we show that the set $\{dgc(G) \mid G \in \mathcal G, 7

Problem

• Euler path
• line graph
• maximum degree
• iterated line graphs
• graph theory

Innovation

• Euler path
• line graph iteration
• maximum degree growth
• prolific graph
• degree growth constant