Maximal and maximum induced matchings in connected graphs

TL;DR

This paper determines the maximum number of maximal and maximum induced matchings in connected graphs of various sizes, providing tight bounds and implications for enumeration algorithms and dissociation sets.

Contribution

It establishes exact upper bounds for the number of maximal and maximum induced matchings in connected graphs, extending previous results and offering tight bounds.

Findings

Maximum number of induced matchings for small graphs (n ≤ 8) is binomial coefficient.

Derived explicit formulas for bounds when 9 ≤ n ≤ 13, 14 ≤ n ≤ 30, and n ≥ 31.

Bounded the enumeration time of all maximal induced matchings to O(1.5849^n).

Abstract

An induced matching in a graph is a set of edges whose endpoints induce a $1$-regular subgraph. Gupta et al. (2012,\cite{Gupta}) showed that every $n$-vertex graph has at most $10^{\frac{n}{5}}\approx 1.5849^n$ maximal induced matchings, which is attained by the disjoint union of copies of the complete graph $K_5$. In this paper, we show that the maximum number of maximal and maximum induced matchings in a connected graph of order $n$ is \begin{align*} \begin{cases} {n\choose 2} &~ {\rm if}~ 1\leq n\le 8; \\ {{\lfloor \frac{n}{2} \rfloor}\choose 2}\cdot {{\lceil \frac{n}{2} \rceil}\choose 2} -(\lfloor \frac{n}{2} \rfloor-1)\cdot (\lceil \frac{n}{2} \rceil-1)+1 &~ {\rm if}~ 9\leq n\le 13; \\ 10^{\frac{n-1}{5}}+\frac{n+144}{30}\cdot 6^{\frac{n-6}{5}} &~ {\rm if}~ 14\leq n\le 30;\\ 10^{\frac{n-1}{5}}+\frac{n-1}{5}\cdot 6^{\frac{n-6}{5}} & ~ {\rm if}~ n\geq 31, \\ \end{cases} \end{align*} and also show that this bound is tight. This result implies that we can enumerate all maximal induced matchings of an $n$-vertex connected graph in time $O(1.5849^n)$. Moreover, our result provides an estimate on the number of maximal dissociation sets of an $n$-vertex connected graph.