Elsevier

Discrete Mathematics

Volume 306, Issue 24, 28 December 2006, Pages 3244-3252
Discrete Mathematics

Destroying automorphisms by fixing nodes

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.disc.2006.06.004Get rights and content
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Abstract

The fixing number of a graph G is the minimum cardinality of a set SV(G) such that every nonidentity automorphism of G moves at least one member of S, i.e., the automorphism group of the graph obtained from G by fixing every node in S is trivial. We provide a formula for the fixing number of a disconnected graph in terms of the fixing numbers of its components and make some observations about graphs with small fixing numbers. We determine the fixing number of a tree and find a necessary and sufficient condition for a tree to have fixing number 1.

Keywords

Fixing number
Symmetry breaking
Automorphism group

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