Characterizing forbidden pairs for hamiltonian squares

Abstract

The square of a graph is obtained by adding additional edges joining all pair of vertices of distance two in the original graph. Particularly, if $C$ is a hamiltonian cycle of a graph $G$, then the square of $C$ is called a hamiltonian square of $G$. In this paper, we characterize all possible forbidden pairs, which implies the containment of a hamiltonian square, in a 4-connected graph. The connectivity condition is necessary as, except $K_3$ and $K_4$, the square of a cycle is always 4-connected.