Separating path systems for cubic graphs and for complete bipartite graphs

Abstract

A strongly separating path system in a graph $G$ is a collection $\mathcal{P}$ of paths in $G$ such that, for every two edges $e$ and $f$ of $G$, there is a paths in $\mathcal{P}$ with $e$ and not $f$, and vice-versa. The minimum number of such a system is the so called strong separation number of $G$. We prove that the strong separation number of every $2$-degenerate graph on $n$ vertices is at most $n$. Using this, we also provide upper bounds for the strong separation number of subcubic graphs, planar graphs, and planar bipartite graphs. On the other hand, we prove that the strong separation number a complete bipartite graph $K_{a,b}$ is at least $b$ if $a<b/2$ and at least $(\sqrt{6(b/2)+4}-2)a$ if $b/2\le a\le b$, and we provide a construction that attains the former bound.

10 pages, 5 figures, final version published in Discrete Math