Explicit Formulas and Unimodality Phenomena for General Position Polynomials

Fuente: arXiv
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Autor principal: Rather, Bilal Ahmad
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Rather, Bilal Ahmad
author_facet Rather, Bilal Ahmad
contents The general position problem in graphs seeks the largest set of vertices such that no three vertices lie on a common geodesic. Its counting refinement, the general position polynomial $ψ(G)$, asks for all such possible sets. In this paper, We describe general position sets for several classes of graphs and provide explicit formulas for the general position polynomials of complete multipartite graphs. We specialize to balanced complete multipartite graphs and show that for part size $r\le 4$, the polynomial $ψ(K_{r,\dots,r})$ is log-concave and unimodal for all numbers of parts, while for larger $r$, counterexamples show that these properties fail. Finally, we analyze the corona $G\circ K_1$ and prove that unimodality of $ψ(G)$ is retained for numerous natural classes (paths, edgeless graphs, combs). This contributes to an open problem, but the general case remains unknown. Our findings support the parallel between general position polynomials and classical position-type parameters, and identify balanced multipartite graphs and coronas as promising testbeds for additional research.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_06930
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Explicit Formulas and Unimodality Phenomena for General Position Polynomials
Rather, Bilal Ahmad
Combinatorics
Discrete Mathematics
05C31, 05C69, 05C76
F.2.2
The general position problem in graphs seeks the largest set of vertices such that no three vertices lie on a common geodesic. Its counting refinement, the general position polynomial $ψ(G)$, asks for all such possible sets. In this paper, We describe general position sets for several classes of graphs and provide explicit formulas for the general position polynomials of complete multipartite graphs. We specialize to balanced complete multipartite graphs and show that for part size $r\le 4$, the polynomial $ψ(K_{r,\dots,r})$ is log-concave and unimodal for all numbers of parts, while for larger $r$, counterexamples show that these properties fail. Finally, we analyze the corona $G\circ K_1$ and prove that unimodality of $ψ(G)$ is retained for numerous natural classes (paths, edgeless graphs, combs). This contributes to an open problem, but the general case remains unknown. Our findings support the parallel between general position polynomials and classical position-type parameters, and identify balanced multipartite graphs and coronas as promising testbeds for additional research.
title Explicit Formulas and Unimodality Phenomena for General Position Polynomials
topic Combinatorics
Discrete Mathematics
05C31, 05C69, 05C76
F.2.2
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.06930