A New Lower Bound on the Independence Number of a Graph and Applications

Abstract

The independence number of a graph $G$, denoted $\alpha(G)$, is the maximum cardinality of an independent set of vertices in $G$. The independence number is one of the most fundamental and well-studied graph parameters. In this paper, we strengthen a result of Fajtlowicz [Combinatorica 4 (1984), 35-38] on the independence of a graph given its maximum degree and maximum clique size. As a consequence of our result we give bounds on the independence number and transversal number of $6$-uniform hypergraphs with maximum degree three. This gives support for a conjecture due to Tuza and Vestergaard [Discussiones Math. Graph Theory 22 (2002), 199-210] that if $H$ is a $3$-regular $6$-uniform hypergraph of order $n$, then $\tau(H) \le n/4$.