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Discussiones Mathematicae Graph Theory 28(1) (2008) 151-163
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7151/dmgt.1398

MAXIMAL k-INDEPENDENT SETS IN GRAPHS

¹Mostafa Blidia, ¹Mustapha Chellali, ²Odile Favaron  and  ¹Nacéra Meddah

¹LAMDA-RO Laboratory, Department of Mathematics
University of Blida
B.P. 270, Blida, Algeria
e-mail: mblidia@hotmail.com, m_chellali@yahoo.com

²Univ. Paris-Sud
LRI, URM 8623, Orsay, F-91405, France
CNRS, Orsay, F91405
e-mail: of@lri.fr

Abstract

A subset of vertices of a graph G is k-independent if it induces in G a subgraph of maximum degree less than k. The minimum and maximum cardinalities of a maximal k-independent set are respectively denoted i_k(G) and β_k(G). We give some relations between β_k(G) and β_j(G) and between i_k(G) and i_j(G) for j ≠ k. We study two families of extremal graphs for the inequality i₂(G) ≤ i(G)+β(G). Finally we give an upper bound on i₂(G) and a lower bound when G is a cactus.

Keywords: k-independent, cactus.

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 05C69.

References

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Received 18 January 2007
Revised 8 January 2008
Accepted 8 January 2008