On homomorphism of oriented graphs with respect to push operation

TL;DR

This paper explores the homomorphism properties of oriented graphs under push operations, characterizing equivalence classes and applying these concepts to specific classes of planar and outerplanar graphs.

Contribution

It establishes a characterization of push relation via anti-twinned graphs and extends the study to homomorphisms of certain classes of planar and outerplanar graphs.

Findings

Two oriented graphs are in a push relation iff their anti-twinned graphs are isomorphic.

Characterization of push relation using anti-twinned graphs.

Analysis of homomorphisms for outerplanar and planar graphs with specific girth conditions.

Abstract

An oriented graph is a directed graph without any cycle of length at most 2. To push a vertex of a directed graph is to reverse the orientation of the arcs incident to that vertex. Klostermeyer and MacGillivray defined push graphs which are equivalence class of oriented graphs with respect to vertex pushing operation. They studied the homomorphism of the equivalence classes of oriented graphs with respect to push operation. In this article, we further study the same topic and answer some of the questions asked in the above mentioned work. The anti-twinned graph of an oriented graph is obtained by adding and pushing a copy of each of its vertices. In particular, we show that two oriented graphs are in a push relation if and only if they have isomorphic anti-twinned graphs. Moreover, we study oriented homomorphisms of outerplanar graphs with girth at least five, planar graphs and planar graphs with girth at least eight with respect to the push operation.