Covering cliques with spanning bicliques

  • Authors:
  • André Kündgen

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Mathematics, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Graph Theory
  • Year:
  • 1998

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Abstract

The edges of the complete graph on n vertices can be covered by ⌈lg n⌉ spanning complete bipartite subgraphs. However, the sum of the number of edges in these subgraphs is roughly (n2-4)lg n, while a cover consisting of n - 1 spanning stars uses only (n - 1)2 edges. We will show that the covering by spanning stars has the smallest total number of edges among all coverings of the clique by spanning complete bipartite subgraphs, except when n is 4 or 8. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Graph Theory 27: 223–227, 1998