Skip to main content
Article
Indistinguishable Trees and Graphs
Graphs and Combinatorics
  • Stephan G. Wagner, Graz University of Technology
  • Hua Wang, Georgia Southern University
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-1-2014
DOI
10.1007/s00373-013-1360-6
Disciplines
Abstract

We show that a number of graph invariants are, even combined, insufficient to distinguish between non-isomorphic trees or general graphs. Among these are: the spectrum of eigenvalues (equivalently, the characteristic polynomial), the number of independent sets of all sizes or the number of connected subgraphs of all sizes. We therefore extend the classical theorem of Schwenk that almost every tree has a cospectral mate, and we provide an answer to a question of Jamison on average subtree orders of trees. The simple construction that we apply for this purpose is based on finding graphs with two distinguished vertices (called pseudosimilar) that do not belong to the same orbit but whose removal yields isomorphic graphs.

Citation Information
Stephan G. Wagner and Hua Wang. "Indistinguishable Trees and Graphs" Graphs and Combinatorics Vol. 30 Iss. 6 (2014) p. 1593 - 1605 ISSN: 1435-5914
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/hua_wang/74/