t-Pancyclic Arcs in Tournaments

Document Type : Original paper

Authors

1 School of Mathematical Sciences, Shanxi University, 030006 Taiyuan, China

2 Lehrstuhl C fuer Mathematik, RWTH Aachen University, 52056 Aachen, Germany

Abstract

Let $T$ be a non-trivial tournament. An arc is \emph{$t$-pancyclic} in $T$, if it is contained in a cycle of length $\ell$ for every $t\leq \ell \leq |V(T)|$. Let $p^t(T)$ denote the number of $t$-pancyclic arcs in $T$ and $h^t(T)$ the maximum number of $t$-pancyclic arcs contained in the same Hamiltonian cycle of $T$. Moon ( J. Combin. Inform. System Sci., 19 (1994), 207-214) showed that $h^3(T)\geq3$ for any non-trivial strong tournament $T$ and characterized the tournaments with $h^3(T)= 3$. In this paper, we generalize Moon's theorem by showing that $h^t(T)\geq t$ for every $3\leq t\leq |V(T)|$ and characterizing all tournaments which satisfy $h^t(T)= t$. We also present all tournaments which fulfill $p^t(T)= t$. 

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