Graph theory

In mathematics graph theory is the study of graphs, which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of vertices, nodes, or points which are connected by edges, arcs, or lines. A graph may be undirected, meaning that there is no distinction between the two vertices associated with each edge, or its edges may be directed from one vertex to another; see Graph (discrete mathematics) for more detailed definitions and for other variations in the types of graph that are commonly considered. Graphs are one of the prime objects of study in discrete mathematics.

Refer to the glossary of graph theory for basic definitions in graph theory.

Definitions in graph theory vary. The following are some of the more basic ways of defining graphs and related mathematical structures.

In the most common sense of the term, a graph is an ordered pair G = (V, E) comprising a set V of vertices or nodes or points together with a set E of edges or arcs or lines, which are 2-element subsets of V (i.e. an edge is associated with two vertices, and that association takes the form of the unordered pair comprising those two vertices). To avoid ambiguity, this type of graph may be described precisely as undirected and simple.

Other senses of graph stem from different conceptions of the edge set. In one more generalized notion,V is a set together with a relation of incidence that associates with each edge two vertices. In another generalized notion, E is a multiset of unordered pairs of (not necessarily distinct) vertices. Many authors call this type of object a multigraph or pseudograph.

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