An extremal problem on potentially $K_{p,1,1}$-graphic sequences

Abstract

A sequence $S$ is potentially $K_{p,1,1}$ graphical if it has a realization containing a $K_{p,1,1}$ as a subgraph, where $K_{p,1,1}$ is a complete 3-partite graph with partition sizes $p,1,1$. Let $σ(K_{p,1,1}, n)$ denote the smallest degree sum such that every $n$-term graphical sequence $S$ with $σ(S)\geq σ(K_{p,1,1}, n)$ is potentially $K_{p,1,1}$ graphical. In this paper, we prove that $σ(K_{p,1,1}, n)\geq 2[((p+1)(n-1)+2)/2]$ for $n \geq p+2.$ We conjecture that equality holds for $n \geq 2p+4.$ We prove that this conjecture is true for $p=3$.