A new lower bound on the independence number of graphs

Eric Angel (1) , Romain Campigotto (2) , Christian Laforest (3)

1 IBISC - Informatique, Biologie Intégrative et Systèmes Complexes
2 LAMSADE - Laboratoire d'analyse et modélisation de systèmes pour l'aide à la décision
3 LIMOS - Laboratoire d'Informatique, de Modélisation et d'optimisation des Systèmes

We propose a new lower bound on the independence number of a graph. We show that our bound compares favorably to recent ones (e.g. [12]). We obtain our bound by using the Bhatia-Davis inequality applied with analytical results (minimum, maximum, expectation and variance) of an algorithm for the vertex cover problem.

Mots clés: Expectation; Graphs; Independence number; Variance; Vertex cover

Domaines: Modélisation et simulation

Eric Angel, Romain Campigotto, Christian Laforest. A new lower bound on the independence number of graphs. Discrete Applied Mathematics, 2013, 161 (6), pp.847--852. ⟨10.1016/j.dam.2012.10.00⟩. ⟨hal-00785106⟩