Whiskers and sequentially Cohen-Macaulay graphs (Q2474498)

Let \(R = k[x_1,\ldots, x_n]\) be a polynomial ring over a field \(k\). For a simple graph \(G =(V_G, E_G)\) with vertex set \(V_G = \{x_1,\ldots, x_n\}\) and the edge set \(E_G\), one associates the edge ideal \(I(G) \subset R\) of \(G\), which is defined as \(I(G) = (x_ix_j : \{x_i, x_j\}\in E_G)\). The graph \(G\) is called (sequentially) Cohen-Macaulay if the Stanley-Reisner ring \(R/I(G)\) is (sequentially) Cohen-Macaulaulay. In this paper, the authors study the following question: how adding whiskers to a graph \(G\) affects (sequentially) Cohen-Macaulayness. For a vertex \(y\in V_G\) and a new vertex \(x\notin V_G\), the new edge \(\{x, y\}\) is called a whisker and the new graph obtained by adding the whisker is denoted by \(G \cup W(y)\). For a subset \(S\subset V_G\), we denote by \(G\cup W(S)\) the graph obtained from \(G\) by adding a whisker at each vertex in \(S\). \textit{R.\ H.\ Villarreal} has shown that \(G\cup W(V_G)\), for any simple graph \(G\), is Cohen-Macaulay [Manuscr. Math. 66, No. 3, 277--293 (1990; Zbl 0737.13003)]. The first main result of this paper is an extension of Villarreal's result. Namely, for \(S \subset V_S\), if \(G\backslash S\) is a chordal graph or a five-cycle \(C_5\), then \(G\cup W(S)\) is a sequentially Cohen-Macaulay graph (Theorem~3.3). As a corollary, we have that if \(S\) is a vertex cover of \(G\), then \(G\cup W(S)\) is sequentially Cohen-Macaulay. As the second main result, the authors prove that, for \(S\subset V_G\), if \(G\cup W(S)\) is sequentially Cohen-Macaulay, then \(G\backslash S\) is sequentially Cohen-Macaulay (Theorem~4.1).