Maximizing the Minimum and Maximum Forcing Numbers of Perfect Matchings of Graphs

Let G be a simple graph with 2n vertices and a perfect matching.The forcing number f(G,M) of a perfect matching M of G is the smallest cardinality of a subset of M that is contained in no other perfect matching of G.Among all perfect matchings M of G,the minimum and maximum values of f(G,M) are called the minimum and maximum forcing numbers of G,denoted by f(G) and F(G),respectively.Then f(G)≤F(G) ≤n-1.Che and Chen(2011) proposed an open problem:how to characterize the graphs G with f(G)=n-1.Later they showed that for a bipartite graph G,f(G)=n-1 if and only if G is complete bipartite graph K_(n,n).In this paper,we completely solve the problem of Che and Chen,and show that f(G)=n-1 if and only if G is a complete multipartite graph or a graph obtained from complete bipartite graph K_(n,n) by adding arbitrary edges in one partite set.For all graphs G with F(G)=n-1,we prove that the forcing spectrum of each such graph G forms an integer interval by matching 2-switches and the minimum forcing numbers of all such graphs G form an integer interval from [n/2] to n-1.