Skeleton Ideals of Certain Graphs, Standard Monomials and Spherical Parking Functions

Let $G$ be a graph on the vertex set $V = \{ 0, 1,\ldots,n\}$ with root $0$. Postnikov and Shapiro were the first to consider a monomial ideal $\mathcal{M}_G$, called the $G$-parking function ideal, in the polynomial ring $ R = {\mathbb{K}}[x_1,\ldots,x_n]$ over a field $\mathbb{K}$ and explained its connection to the chip-firing game on graphs. The standard monomials of the Artinian quotient $\frac{R}{\mathcal{M}_G}$ correspond bijectively to $G$-parking functions. Dochtermann introduced and studied skeleton ideals of the graph $G$, which are subideals of the $G$-parking function ideal with an additional parameter $k ~(0\le k \le n-1)$. A $k$-skeleton ideal $\mathcal{M}_G^{(k)}$ of the graph $G$ is generated by monomials corresponding to non-empty subsets of the set of non-root vertices $[n]$ of size at most $k+1$. Dochtermann obtained many interesting homological and combinatorial properties of these skeleton ideals. In this paper, we study the $k$-skeleton ideals of graphs and for certain classes of graphs provide explicit formulas and combinatorial interpretation of standard monomials and the Betti numbers.

On the sandpile model of modified wheels II

We investigate the abelian sandpile group on modified wheels {\hat{W}}_{n} by using a variant of the dollar game as described in [N. L. Biggs, Chip-Firing and the critical group of a graph, J. Algebr. Comb. 9 (1999), 25–45]. The complete structure of the sandpile group on a class of graphs is given in this paper. In particular, it is shown that the sandpile group on {\hat{W}}_{n} is a direct product of two cyclic subgroups generated by some special configurations. More precisely, the sandpile group on {\hat{W}}_{n} is the direct product of two cyclic subgroups of order {a}_{n} and 3{a}_{n} for n even and of order {a}_{n} and 2{a}_{n} for n odd, respectively.

On the Gonality of Cartesian Products of Graphs

In this paper we provide the first systematic treatment of Cartesian products of graphs and their divisorial gonality, which is a tropical version of the gonality of an algebraic curve defined in terms of chip-firing. We prove an upper bound on the gonality of the Cartesian product of any two graphs, and determine instances where this bound holds with equality, including for the $m\times n$ rook's graph with $\min\{m,n\}\leq 5$. We use our upper bound to prove that Baker's gonality conjecture holds for the Cartesian product of any two graphs with two or more vertices each, and we determine precisely which nontrivial product graphs have gonality equal to Baker's conjectural upper bound. We also extend some of our results to metric graphs.

Stable Divisorial Gonality is in NP

Divisorial gonality and stable divisorial gonality are graph parameters, which have an origin in algebraic geometry. Divisorial gonality of a connected graph G can be defined with help of a chip firing game on G. The stable divisorial gonality of G is the minimum divisorial gonality over all subdivisions of edges of G. In this paper we prove that deciding whether a given connected graph has stable divisorial gonality at most a given integer k belongs to the class NP. Combined with the result that (stable) divisorial gonality is NP-hard by Gijswijt et al., we obtain that stable divisorial gonality is NP-complete. The proof consists of a partial certificate that can be verified by solving an Integer Linear Programming instance. As a corollary, we have that the total number of subdivisions needed for minimum stable divisorial gonality of a graph with m edges is bounded by mO(mn).