Orientable convexity, geodetic and hull numbers in graphs

Abstract

We prove three results conjectured or stated by Chartrand, Fink and Zhang [European J. Combin {\bf 21} (2000) 181--189, Disc. Appl. Math. {\bf 116} (2002) 115--126, and pre-print of ``The hull number of an oriented graph'']. For a digraph $D$, Chartrand et al. defined the geodetic, hull and convexity number -- $g(D)$, $h(D)$ and $con(D)$, respectively. For an undirected graph $G$, $g^{-}(G)$ and $g^{+}(G)$ are the minimum and maximum geodetic numbers over all orientations of $G$, and similarly for $h^{-}(G)$, $h^{+}(G)$, $con^{-}(G)$ and $con^{+}(G)$. Chartrand and Zhang gave a proof that $g^{-}(G) < g^{+}(G)$ for any connected graph with at least three vertices. We plug a gap in their proof, allowing us also to establish their conjecture that $h^{-}(G) < h^{+}(G)$. If $v$ is an end-vertex, then in any orientation of $G$, $v$ is either a source or a sink. It is easy to see that graphs without end-vertices can be oriented to have no source or sink; we show that, in fact, we can avoid all extreme vertices. This proves another conjecture of Chartrand et al., that $con^{-}(G) < con^{+}(G)$ iff $G$ has no end-vertices.