A weighted cycle-localization inequality

TL;DR

This paper generalizes a classical cycle-length inequality to weighted graphs, establishing a new weighted local inequality that relates edge weights and maximum cycle weights containing each edge.

Contribution

It introduces a weighted version of the local cycle inequality, extending previous unweighted results and providing conditions for equality in the weighted setting.

Findings

Proves a weighted inequality relating edge weights and cycle weights.

Identifies classes of graphs where equality holds.

Provides necessary conditions for equality cases.

Abstract

In 1959, Erd\H{o}s and Gallai showed that every $2$-connected graph $G$ contains a cycle of length at least $\frac{2|E(G)|}{|V(G)|-1}$. This result was subsequently extended to weighted graphs by Bondy and Fan in 1991. A natural local variant of this problem arises by considering, for each edge $e\in E(G)$, the quantity $c(e)$, defined as the length of the longest cycle in $G$ containing $e$ (with $c(e)=2$ if $e$ is a bridge). Zhao and Zhang recently proved that for every graph $G$ on $n$ vertices satisfies $\sum_{e\in E(G)}\frac{1}{c(e)}\le \frac{n-1}{2}.$ In this note, we establish a weighted generalization of this inequality. For a weighted graph $(G,w)$ with positive edge weights, let $C_w(e)$ denote the maximum weight of a cycle containing $e$ (setting $C_w(e)=2w(e)$ if $e$ is a bridge). We prove that $$ \sum_{e\in E(G)}\frac{w(e)}{C_w(e)}\le \frac{n-1}{2}. $$ Our result can be viewed as a weighted local analogue of the Bondy-Fan theorem, thereby establishing a correspondence between the global and local perspectives. Furthermore, we present a broad class of graphs attaining equality and derive necessary conditions for equality.