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Old November 10th, 2009, 10:29 AM
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Exclamation Graph Theory homework help

I have to find all the trees on 6 vertices up to isomorphism, and prove that there are no others.

I am unsure of how to do this problem.

Thanks for any help
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  #2  
Old November 10th, 2009, 01:04 PM
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I have to find all the trees on 6 vertices up to isomorphism, and prove that there are no others.

I am unsure of how to do this problem.

Thanks for any help
One method would be to list all the possible trees systematically by looking at the highest degree of a vertex.

If there is a vertex of degree five then the tree must look like this:
Code:
     o
     |
 o – o – o
    / \
   o   o
At the opposite extreme, if the highest vertex degree is two then the tree must look like this:
Code:
  o – o – o – o – o – o
The intermediate cases, where the highest vertex degree is three or four, take a bit more thought, but are not too hard. (Hint: there's only one possibility for the degree four case, but three different graphs in the degree three case.)

Last edited by Opalg; November 15th, 2009 at 01:37 AM. Reason: corrected error
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Old November 14th, 2009, 05:16 AM
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Default How to prove isomorphism on trees

Thanks, i have found all the trees on 6 vertices up to isomorphism.

I have got 6 different trees.

How can i prove there there is no other trees.
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Old November 14th, 2009, 01:23 PM
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Thanks, i have found all the trees on 6 vertices up to isomorphism... How can i prove there there is no other trees.
It should follow from the systematic procedure you used to enumerate the trees. If, e.g., you consider the highest degree of a vertex, as was suggested above, then it is clear that there is only one tree for each of the degrees 1 and 5. If the highest degree is 4, then the only possibility up to isomorphism is
Code:
  o
  |
o-o-o-o
  |
  o
It is left to show that there are exactly 3 trees where the highest vertex degree is 3.
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Old November 17th, 2009, 12:15 PM
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Default Proving isomorphism on trees

I understand the method.

Is there anything else I could use to show to aid my proof, so i can show there any no more trees other than the 6 i obtained

i.e. bijection, degree sequence etc.

I have been searching the internet, but I not sure if i can use bijection, or degree sequence, as the definitions apply to graphs, wheras am dealing with trees.

Thanks
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Old November 17th, 2009, 03:34 PM
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Nothing else comes to mind.

The enumeration method is not as neat, but it can be completely strict. You just have to make sure that your cases are exhaustive.
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