Minimal and Disjoint Negation Sets in Signed Graphs

Abstract

A signed graph is a graph with a function that assigns a label of positive or negative to each edge. The sign of a circle is the product of the signs of its edges; a graph is balanced if all of its circles are positive. A set of edges whose negation yields a balanced graph is a negation set. Results: tests to determine whether a negation set is minimal, minimum, or the unique minimum; any two disjoint negation sets must be bipartite; two classes of graphs are shown to have bipartite negation sets (in general, existence is an unsolved problem); I give an algorithm which finds a maximum family of disjoint negation sets that includes a given negation set.