The independence polynomial of trees is not always log-concave starting from order 26

An independent set in a graph is a collection of vertices that are not adjacent to each other. The cardinality of the largest independent set in G is represented by alpha(G). The independence polynomial of a graph G  was introduced by Gutman and Harary in 1983 and is defined as\[I(G;x) = \sum_{k=0}^{\alpha(G)}{s_k}x^{k}={s_0}+{s_1}x+{s_2}x^{2}+...+{s_{\alpha(G)}}x^{\alpha(G)},\]where sk represents the number of independent sets in G of size k. The conjecture made by Alavi, Malde, Schwenk, and Erdos in 1987 stated that the independence polynomials of trees are unimodal, and many researchers believed that this conjecture could be strengthened up to its corresponding log-concave version. However, in our paper, we present evidence that contradicts this assumption by introducing infinite families of trees whose independence polynomials are not log-concave.

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Publication Details

Journal
Ars Mathematica Contemporanea
Published
2025-04-02
DOI
https://doi.org/10.26493/1855-3974.3207.2ad
Citations
1
Primary Topic
Graph theory and applications
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
4.09
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article

The independence polynomial of trees is not always log-concave starting from order 26

Ohr Kadrawi, Vadim E. Levit
1 citations
Ars Mathematica Contemporanea
Graph theory and applications
4.09
article

The independence polynomial of trees is not always log-concave starting from order 26

Ohr Kadrawi, Vadim E. Levit
article en
1 citations

Abstract

An independent set in a graph is a collection of vertices that are not adjacent to each other. The cardinality of the largest independent set in G is represented by alpha(G). The independence polynomial of a graph G  was introduced by Gutman and Harary in 1983 and is defined as\[I(G;x) = \sum_{k=0}^{\alpha(G)}{s_k}x^{k}={s_0}+{s_1}x+{s_2}x^{2}+...+{s_{\alpha(G)}}x^{\alpha(G)},\]where sk represents the number of independent sets in G of size k. The conjecture made by Alavi, Malde, Schwenk, and Erdos in 1987 stated that the independence polynomials of trees are unimodal, and many researchers believed that this conjecture could be strengthened up to its corresponding log-concave version. However, in our paper, we present evidence that contradicts this assumption by introducing infinite families of trees whose independence polynomials are not log-concave.

Ars Mathematica ContemporaneaVol. 25(4)
Ariel University (IL)
Openalex Percentile: Top 11%
Graph theory and applications
4.09
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