On the extremal graphs for degenerate subsets, dynamic monopolies, and partial incentives

Abstract

The famous lower bound $\alpha(G)\geq \sum_{u\in V(G)}\frac{1}{d_G(u)+1}$ on the independence number $\alpha(G)$ of a graph $G$ due to Caro and Wei is known to be tight if and only if the components of $G$ are cliques, and has been generalized several times in the context of large degenerate subsets and small dynamic monopolies. We characterize the extremal graphs for a generalization due to Ackerman, Ben-Zwi, and Wolfovitz. Furthermore, we give a simple proof of a related bound concerning partial incentives due to Cordasco, Gargano, Rescigno, and Vaccaro, and also characterize the corresponding extremal graphs.