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Windmill graph

Graph family made by joining complete graphs at a universal node

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In the mathematical field of graph theory, the windmill graph Wd(k,n) is an undirected graph constructed for k ≥ 2 and n ≥ 2 by joining n copies of the complete graph Kk at a shared universal vertex. That is, it is a 1-clique-sum of these complete graphs.

01Properties

It has n(k − 1) + 1 vertices and nk(k − 1)/2 edges, girth 3 (if k > 2), radius 1 and diameter 2. It has vertex connectivity 1 because its central vertex is an articulation point; however, like the complete graphs from which it is formed, it is (k − 1)-edge-connected. It is trivially perfect and a block graph.

Small windmill graphs.
Small windmill graphs.

02Special cases

By construction, the windmill graph Wd(3,n) is the friendship graph Fn, the windmill graph Wd(2,n) is the star graph Sn and the windmill graph Wd(3,2) is the butterfly graph.

03Labeling and colouring

The windmill graph has chromatic number k and chromatic index n(k − 1). Its chromatic polynomial can be deduced from the chromatic polynomial of the complete graph and is equal to

x\prod _{i=1}^{k-1}(x-i)^{n}.

The windmill graph Wd(k,n) is proved not graceful if k > 5. In 1979, Bermond has conjectured that Wd(4,n) is graceful for all n ≥ 4. Through an equivalence with perfect difference families, this has been proved for n ≤ 1000. Bermond, Kotzig, and Turgeon proved that Wd(k,n) is not graceful when k = 4 and n = 2 or n = 3, and when k = 5 and n = 2. The windmill Wd(3,n) is graceful if and only if n ≡ 0 (mod 4) or n ≡ 1 (mod 4).

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Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article Windmill graph, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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