Degrees in a digraph whose nodes are graphs Original Research Article

By an f-graph we mean an unlabeled graph having no vertex of degree greater than f. Let D(n, f) denote the digraph whose node set is the set of f-graphs of order n and such that there is an arc from the node corresponding to graph H to the node corresponding to the graph K if and only if K is obtainable from H by the addition of a single edge. In earlier work, algorithms were developed which produce exact results about the structure of D(n, f), nevertheless many open problems remain. For example, the computation of the order and size of D(n, f) for a number of values of n and f have been obtained. Formulas for the order and size for f = 2 have also been derived. However, no closed form formulas have been determined for the order and size of D(n, f) for any value of f. Here we focus on questions concerning the degrees of the nodes in D(n,n − 1) and comment on related questions for D(n,f) for 2 ⩽ f < n − 1.