Disjoint paths in hypercubes with prescribed origins and lengths

Abstract

Given (i) any k vertices u ₁, u ₂, …, u _k (1≤k<n) in the n-cube Q _n , where (u ₁, u ₂), (u ₃, u ₄), …, (u _2m−1, u _2m ) (m≤⌊ k\2 ⌋) are edges of the same dimension, (ii) any k positive integers a ₁, a ₂, …, a _k such that a ₁, a ₂, …, a _2m are odd and a _2m+1, …, a _k are even, with a ₁+a ₂+···+a _k =2 ⁿ , and (iii) k subsets W ₁, W ₂, …, W _k of V(Q _n ) with |W _i |≤n−k and if a _i =1, then u _i ¬∈W _i , for 1≤i≤k, we show that there exist k vertex-disjoint paths P ₍₁₎, P ₍₂₎, …, P _(k) in Q _n where P _(i) contains a _i vertices, its origin is u _i , and its terminus is in V(Q _n )/ W _i , for 1≤i≤k. We also prove a similar result which extends two well-known results of Havel, [I. Havel On hamilton circuits and spanning trees of hypercubes, Časopis pro Pĕstování Matematiky, 109 (1984), pp. 135–152.] and Nebeský, [L. Nebeský Embedding m-quasistars into n-cubes, Czech. Math. J. 38 (1988), pp. 705–712].

Keywords:

• interconnection network
• hypercube
• Hamiltonian cycles
• Hamiltonian paths
• vertex-disjoint paths

AMS Subject Classification :

• 05C12
• 05C38
• G.2.2.3
• G.2.2.4

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the referees for their valuable suggestions which improved our presentation.