Events - March 2022

Title: Minimal induced subgraphs of two classes of 2-connected non-Hamiltonian graphs

Abstract:

Finding sufficient conditions for a class of graphs to be Hamiltonian is an old problem, with a wide variety of conditions such as Dirac's degree condition and Whitney's theorem on 4-connected planar triangulations. We discuss some past results on sufficient conditions for Hamiltonicity involving the exclusion of fixed induced subgraphs, and some properties of the graphs involved in such results.

Title: The chromatic number of triangle-free hypergraphs

Abstract:

A classical result of Johansson showed that for any triangle-free graph $G$ with maximum degree $\Delta$, it chromatic number is $O(\Delta/\log\Delta)$. This result was later generalized to all rank 3 hypergraphs due to the work of Copper and Mubayi. In this talk, I will present a common generalization of the above results to all hypergraphs, and this is sharp apart from the constant.

Title: Reduced bandwidth: a qualitative strengthening of twin-width in minor-closed classes (and beyond)

Abstract:

In a reduction sequence of a graph, vertices are successively identified until the graph has one vertex. At each step, when identifying $u$ and $v$, each edge incident to exactly one of $u$ and $v$ is coloured red.

Title: Fixed-size schemes for certification of large quantum systems

Abstract:

In this talk I will introduce the concept of self-testing which aims to answer the fundamental question of how do we certify proper functioning of black-box quantum devices. We will see that there is a close link between self-testing and representations of algebraic relations. We will leverage this link to propose a family of protocols capable of certifying quantum states and measurements of arbitrarily large dimension with just four binary-outcome measurements.

This is a joint work with Chris Schafhauser and Jitendra Prakash.

Title: On packing dijoins in digraphs and weighted digraphs

Abstract:

Let D=(V,A) be a digraph. A dicut is the set of arcs in a cut where all the arcs cross in the same direction, and a dijoin is a set of arcs whose contraction makes D strongly connected. It is known that every dicut and dijoin intersect. Suppose every dicut has size at least k.

Title: Type B q-Stirling numbers

Abstract:

The Stirling numbers of the first and second kind are classical objects in enumerative combinatorics which count the number of permutations or set partitions with a given number of blocks or cycles, respectively. Carlitz and Gould introduced q-analogues of the Stirling numbers of the first and second kinds, which have been further studied by many authors including Gessel, Garsia, Remmel, Wilson, and others, particularly in relation to certain statistics on ordered set partitions.

Title: Obstructions for matroids of path-width at most k and graphs of linear rank-width at most k

Abstract:

Every minor-closed class of matroids of bounded branch-width can be characterized by a minimal list of excluded minors, but unlike graphs, this list could be infinite in general. However, for each fixed finite field $\mathbb F$, the list contains only finitely many $\mathbb F$-representable matroids, due to the well-quasi-ordering of $\mathbb F$-representable matroids of bounded branch-width under taking matroid minors [J. F. Geelen, A. M. H. Gerards, and G. Whittle (2002)].

Title: Counting planar maps, 50 years after William Tutte

Abstract:

Every planar map can be properly coloured with four colours. But how many proper colourings has, on average, a planar map with $n$ edges? What if we allow a prescribed number of "monochromatic" edges, the endpoints of which share the same colour? What if we have $q$ colours rather than four?