A bound on relative lengths of triangle-free graphs

Abstract

For a 2-connected graph G, the relative length of G, denoted by diff(G), is the difference between the orders of a longest path and a longest cycle in G. This parameter is used as a measure to estimate how close a given graph is to a hamiltonian graph. Let σk(G) be the least value of the sums of degrees of vertices in independent sets of cardinality k. In 2008, Paulusma and Yoshimoto proved that a 2-connected triangle-free graph G of order n with σ4(G)≥n+2 satisfies diff(G)≤1 unless G is isomorphic to one exceptional graph G0. In this paper, we extend their result and prove that for an integer s with 23(n+4)<s≤n+2, a 2-connected triangle-free graph of order n with σ4(G)≥s satisfies diff(G)≤n+3−s unless s=σ4(G)=n+2 and G=G0.