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A Bijective Proof of a Theorem of Knuth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2010

HODA BIDKHORI
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA (e-mail: [email protected], [email protected])
SHAUNAK KISHORE
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA (e-mail: [email protected], [email protected])

Abstract

The line graph G of a directed graph G has a vertex for every edge of G and an edge for every path of length 2 in G. In 1967, Knuth used the Matrix Tree Theorem to prove a formula for the number of spanning trees of G, and he asked for a bijective proof [6]. In this paper, we give a bijective proof of Knuth's formula. As a result of this proof, we find a bijection between binary de Bruijn sequences of degree n and binary sequences of length 2n−1. Finally, we determine the critical groups of all the Kautz graphs and de Bruijn graphs, generalizing a result of Levine [7].

Type
Paper
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

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