A Structure Preserving Generalization of Independence, Domination and Irredundance

Abstract

The now famous inequality chain ir≤γ≤i≤β ≤ Γ ≤ IR, where ir and IR denote the lower and upper irredundance numbers of a graph, γ and Γ the lower and upper domination numbers, i the independent domination number and β the independence number of a graph, may be seen as the culmination of a process by which we start with independence (a hereditary property of vertex sets); we characterize maximal independence by domination (a superhereditary property of vertex sets), and then characterize minimal domination by irredundance (again a hereditary property). In this paper we generalize independent, dominating and irredundant sets of a graph G to what we will call s-dominating, s-independent and s-irredundant functions (for s a positive integer), which are functions of the type f : V (G) → N, in such a way that the maximal 1-independent, the minimal 1- dominating and the maximal 1-irredundant functions are the characteristic functions of the maximal independent, the minimal dominating and the maximal irredundant sets of G respectively. In addition, we would want to preserve those properties of and relationships between independence, domination and irredundance needed to extend the inequality chain ir≤γ≤i≤β ≤ Γ ≤ IR to one for s-dominating, s-independent and s-irredundant functions by a process similar to that described above.