Date of Award

5-2013

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Departmental Honors

Department

Mathematics and Statistics

Abstract

Paired comparison is the process of comparing objects two at a time. A tournament in Graph Theory is a representation of such paired comparison data. Formally, an n-tournament is an oriented complete graph on n vertices; that is, it is the representation of a paired comparison, where the winner of the comparison between objects x and y (x and y are called vertices) is depicted with an arrow or arc from the winner to the other.

In this thesis, we shall prove several results on tournaments. In Chapter 2, we will prove that the maximum number of vertices that can beat exactly m other vertices in an n-tournament is min{2m + 1,2n - 2m - 1}. The remainder of this thesis will deal with tournaments whose arcs have been colored. In Chapter 3 we will define what it means for a k-coloring of a tournament to be k-primitive. We will prove that the maximum k such that some strong n-tournament can be k-colored to be k-primitive lies in the interval [(n-12), (n2) - [n/4]). In Chapter 4, we shall prove special cases of the following 1982 conjecture of Sands, Sauer, and Woodrow from [14]: Let T be a 3-arc-colored tournament containing no 3-cycle C such that each arc in C is a different color. Then T contains a vertex v such that for any other vertex x, x has a monochromatic path to v.

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Faculty Mentor

David E. Brown

Departmental Honors Advisor

David E. Brown