A complete bipartite graph, sometimes also called a complete bicolored graph (Erdős et al. 1965) or complete bigraph, is a bipartite
graph (i.e., a set of graph vertices decomposed
into two disjoint sets such that no two graph vertices
within the same set are adjacent) such that every pair of graph
vertices in the two sets are adjacent. If there are and
graph vertices in the two
sets, the complete bipartite graph is denoted
. The above figures show
and
.
is also known as the utility graph (and is the circulant graph
), and is the unique 4-cage
graph.
is a Cayley graph. A complete bipartite graph
is a circulant graph (Skiena 1990, p. 99),
specifically
,
where
is the floor function.
Special cases of are summarized in the table below.
is Hamiltonian iff
and
.
The numbers of Hamiltonian cycles for
with
, 2, ... are 0, 1, 6, 72, 1440, 43200, 1814400, 101606400,
... (OEIS A010796), where the
th term for
is given by
and
is a factorial.
Complete bipartite graphs are graceful.
Zarankiewicz's conjecture posits a closed form for the graph crossing number of .
The independence polynomial of is given by
(1)
|
which has recurrence equation
(2)
|
the matching polynomial by
(3)
|
where
is a Laguerre polynomial, and the matching-generating
polynomial by
(4)
|
has a true Hamilton decomposition iff
and
is even, and a quasi-Hamilton decomposition iff
and
is odd (Laskar and Auerbach 1976; Bosák 1990, p. 124).
The complete bipartite graph illustrated above plays an important role in the novel
Foucault's
Pendulum by Umberto Eco (1989, p. 473; Skiena 1990, p. 143).