Universal lines in graphs

Abstract

In a metric space M = (X, d), a line induced by two distinct points x, x′ ∈ X, denoted by , is the set of points given by A line is universal whenever . Chen and Chvátal [Disc. Appl. Math. 156 (2008), 2101-2108.] conjectured that in any finite metric space M = (X, d) either there is a universal line, or there are at least |X| different (nonuniversal) lines. A particular problem derived from this conjecture consists of investigating the properties of M that determine the existence of a universal line, and the problem remains interesting even if we can check that M has at least |X| different lines. Since the vertex set of any connected graph, equipped with the shortest path distance, is a metric space, the problem automatically becomes of interest in graph theory. In this paper, we address the problem of characterizing graphs that have universal lines. We consider several scenarios in which the study can be approached by analysing the existence of such lines in primary subgraphs. We first discuss the wide class of separable graphs, and then describe some particular cases, including those of block graphs, rooted product graphs and corona graphs. We also discuss important classes of nonseparable graphs, including Cartesian product graphs, join graphs and lexicographic product graphs.