Proof. By way of contradiction, suppose that contains a subset W containing 7 vertices which are resolving. Observe that has diameter d and for every vertex , the vertices at distance d from are the 10 consecutive vertices (consecutive by index distance) , where .
Let . Since W must distinguish from , we have or or there is a vertex at index distance from for some . But since both and have index distance from , we conclude that W must contain a vertex at index distance from .
So for every , there is such that the index distance between and is a multiple of 5. Obviously, such a role as that which plays for is played also by for . And since , there must be a vertex in W, say , such that two vertices from W, say and , have an index distance that is a multiple of 5 from .
Not only this, but let and . Then, L, R, is a partition of . If both and are in R (or if they are both in L), then all mutual index distances between pairs of vertices of are multiples of 5. Hence, by symmetry, we may assume that , , and we may also assume that .
Now, we split L and R, each into five sets according to the index distance from (). Let . By (by ), we denote vertices of L (of R) whose index distance from is congruent to . (Observe that the index distance cannot be greater than .) Hence, and .
As mentioned above, for every
, to distinguish
from
, there must be a vertex in
W which is at index distance
from
. For instance, if
, then to distinguish
from
,
W contains a vertex, say
, such that either
(if
is in
L), or
(when
and the shortest index distance
path contains
), or
(when
and the shortest index distance
path does not contain
). In
Table 2, we have all 10 cases according to
being in
,
, …,
. In each case, the vertex
is from the union of the three sets.
Let . Suppose that we have borders caused by vertices of W and the borders caused by the remaining i vertices of W are not considered yet. Moreover, suppose that there is a sequence of vertices, say , such that none of the already considered vertices is in and the already considered vertices do not create borders between any consecutive pair from . Then, cannot be among the remaining vertices of W. The reason is that each of the remaining i vertices of W causes, at most, one border in the sequence and if it is in , , then it causes no border in the sequence since every member of the sequence is at distance d from all the vertices from .
Denote 11 vertices which are at distance at most 1 from
by
, and denote 10 vertices which are at distance
d from
by
. Then, both
and
form sequences of consecutive vertices. We consider the situation in
and
. In
Figure 1, we describe
and
as they occur in the cycle
(the other vertices are not depicted). Circles represent vertices of
, and those whose position is already known, such as
, are depicted instead of circles. Vertical lines are borders caused by
, and in the space between vertices, we indicate which vertices may form the border. In fact, such vertices cause borders if and only if they are not in
or
, and therefore, situations when
W contains vertices of
or
should be considered separately.
Regarding the position of and in , by symmetry, we distinguish three main cases.
Case 1. .
See
Figure 2, where we specify also the borders in
caused by
and
.
The vertices and must be distinguished, so there must be a border on the left-hand side of (or ) or on the right-hand side of (or ). By symmetry, we may assume that this border is on the right-hand side of . So for the next vertex , we have either , or but , or . We consider these subcases separately.
Subcase 1.1. .
So,
. Now, the positions of four vertices of
W are determined, see
Figure 3. It remains to be determined the positions of the last three vertices, say,
,
and
.
At the moment, there is a sequence of four consecutive vertices in without a border, namely, , so since it remains to be determined the three vertices of W. Also, there is a sequence of four consecutive vertices in without a border, namely , so . Thus, there is a border between and , and also a border between and . This yields four possibilities.
(a)
and
. Since
must be distinguished from
, we have
or
. In any case, by
Table 2,
W does not contain a vertex at index distance
from
.
(b)
and
. By
Table 2,
since
W must contain a vertex at index distance
from
. At the same time,
since
W must contain a vertex at index distance
from
, a contradiction.
(c) and . Since must be distinguished from and , we have . On the other hand, must be distinguished from and so , a contradiction.
(d)
and
. Since
must be distinguished from
, we have
. However, by
Table 2,
W does not contain a vertex at index distance
from
.
Subcase 1.2. but
(see
Figure 4).
At the moment, there are sequences of four consecutive vertices without a border in (), in (), and in (). Therefore, , and . Hence, there is a border between and and also a border between and . Analogously as in Subcase 1.1, we consider four possibilities.
(a)
and
. Since
must be distinguished from
and
, we have
. In any case, by
Table 2,
W does not contain a vertex at index distance
from
.
(b) and . This case can be solved analogously as in Subcase 1.1.
(c)
and
. Since
must be distinguished from
and
, we have
. On the other hand,
must be distinguished from
and
, and so
. Consequently,
, and by
Table 2,
W does not contain a vertex at index distance
from
.
(d) and . This case can be solved analogously as in Subcase 1.1.
Subcase 1.3. .
This situation is presented in
Figure 5. Here,
if
, or
. In any case,
.
In this subcase, we have four consecutive vertices without a border in all , , and , and so and . Hence, there is a border between and , and also a border between and . This gives the same possibilities as in the previous two subcases, and they can be solved analogously as in Subcase 1.2.
Case 2. but
(see
Figure 6).
The positions of three vertices of W are determined, and it remains to be determined the last four vertices. But at the moment, there is a sequence of five consecutive vertices without a border in , namely , and so . Thus, we distinguish eight possibilities.
(a)
,
and
. By
Table 2,
since
W must contain a vertex at index distance
from
. At the same time,
since
W must contain a vertex at index distance
from
, a contradiction.
(b)
,
and
. By
Table 2,
since
W must contain a vertex at index distance
from
. At the same time,
since
W must contain a vertex at index distance
from
, a contradiction.
(c) , and . Since must be distinguished from , we have or or . Summing up, . At the same time, since W must contain a vertex at index distance from , a contradiction.
(d)
,
and
. By
Table 2,
since
W must contain a vertex at index distance
from
. At the same time,
since
W must contain a vertex at index distance
from
, a contradiction.
(e) , and . To distinguish from , we have or or . But the case was already considered in Case 1. Hence, . At the same time, W must contain a vertex at index distance from , and so . To distinguish from , W must contain a vertex in or or . Consequently, . However, then, does not create the border between and . Since W does not contain a vertex in and , the vertices and are not resolved, a contradiction.
(f) , and . First, suppose that . To distinguish from , we have or or . Hence, . At the same time, since W must contain a vertex at index distance from , a contradiction. So . But then, does not create a border between and since , . But then, W does not contain a vertex at index distance from , a contradiction.
(g) , and . To distinguish from , we must have or or . Summing up, . At the same time since W must contain a vertex at index distance from , a contradiction.
(h)
,
and
. By
Table 2,
since
W must contain a vertex at index distance
from
. At the same time
since
W must contain a vertex at index distance
from
, a contradiction.
Analogously as in Case 2, at the moment there are sequences of five consecutive vertices without a border in and , and so and . Thus, we distinguish eight possibilities analogously as in Case 2. And we can use the proofs from Case 2 since in Case 3, we have more restrictions (so it is even easier to obtain a contradiction). ☐
Proof. We proceed analogously as in the proof of Theorem 2. Let . Observe that the index distance is at most in . Obviously, has diameter d and for every vertex . There are nine consecutive vertices at distance d from , namely, .
By way of contradiction, suppose that contains a subset W of six vertices, which is resolving. Let . Denote and . Hence, . Analogously as in the proof of Theorem 2, we split L and R each into five sets according to the index distance from . Let . By (by ), we denote vertices of L (of R) whose index distance from is congruent to . (Recall that the index distance does not exceed .) To simplify the notation, we assume that .
Let . Suppose that we have borders caused by vertices of W and the borders caused by the remaining i vertices of W are not considered yet. Moreover, suppose that there is a sequence of vertices, say such that none of the already considered vertices is in and the already considered vertices do not form borders between any consecutive pair from . Then, cannot be among the remaining vertices of W. The reason is that each of the remaining i vertices of W causes at most one border in the sequence and if it is in , then it causes no border in the sequence since every member of the sequence is at distance d from all the vertices from .
Denote 11 vertices which are at distance at most 1 from
by
, and denote 9 vertices which are at distance
d from
by
. Then, both
and
form sequences of vertices, where neighboring vertices have index distance 1. We consider mainly the situation in
and
. In
Figure 8, we describe
and
analogously as in the proof of Theorem 2. Circles represent vertices of
, and those whose position is already known, such as
, are depicted instead of circles. Vertical borders are borders caused by
, and in the space between vertices, we indicate which vertices may form the border. Again, such vertices cause borders if and only if they are not in
or
, and therefore situations when
W contains vertices of
or
should be considered separately.
Before we start with cases, we exclude the possibility that two consecutive vertices are in
W. So by way of contradiction, suppose that
, see
Figure 9.
This yields a sequence of six consecutive vertices without a border caused by or . However, any vertex from creates at most one border in this sequence, and so W cannot distinguish all the vertices in this sequence, a contradiction.
To distinguish the three vertices , we need two vertices of W, say, and . In the following cases, we distinguish their position with respect to .
Case 1. . (By symmetry, we consider three subcases.)
Subcase 1.1. and
(see
Figure 10).
At the moment, there is a sequence of four vertices without a border in , namely, . Thus, are not among the vertices of , and so . Analogously, , form a sequence of 4 consecutive vertices without a border in , and so .
Observe that even if . Hence, to distinguish from , we need . By now, this subcase is symmetric, so we may assume that . Recall that as mentioned above, . Now, we consider four possibilities with respect to .
(a) . Recall that . Since must be distinguished from , we have , and since must be distinguished from , we have . However, also must be distinguished from , and so W must contain a vertex in , that is a vertex in , a contradiction.
(b) and . In this case . To distinguish from we have , and to distinguish from we have . However, to distinguish from we conclude that , and to distinguish from , we conclude that .
So we have
,
,
,
and
. This choice works well in
, see
Figure 11. So denote
,
,
,
,
and
,
, and analogously construct
,
,
,
,
and
where
.
Consider
. We have
,
,
,
and
. Observe that
W does not contain a vertex in
. Thus, the unique vertex
must distinguish three consecutive vertices
in
(see
Figure 8), a contradiction.
(c) and . In this case, . To distinguish from , we have , and to distinguish from , we have . However, to distinguish from we conclude that , and to distinguish from , we need a vertex of W in or (different from ) or , a contradiction.
(d) , that is and . To distinguish from , we have , and to distinguish from , we have . However, to distinguish from , the set W must contain a vertex of or or (different from ). Thus, or . And to distinguish from , the set W must contain a vertex in or or , and so . Now, if , then is not distinguished from , so we conclude that . This yields a situation which was already solved in case (b) above.
Subcase 1.2. and
(see
Figure 12).
In each , , and , there are four consecutive vertices which are not resolved by , even if or . Since the sequence yields , and the sequence yields , we have .
Hence, to distinguish from , we have ; to distinguish from , we have ; and to distinguish from , we have . But also, must be distinguished from , and so . And since must be distinguished from , W must contain a vertex in , a contradiction.
Subcase 1.3. and
, see
Figure 13 (the case
and
is analogous, by symmetry).
Recall that . So at the moment, the vertices are not distinguished, and so . That is, . Analogously are not distinguished since , and so .
Hence, to distinguish from , we have ; to distinguish from , we have ; and to distinguish from , we have . On the other hand, also must be distinguished from , and so . Since must be distinguished from , we have . And since must be distinguished from , we have .
So we have , , , and . Observe that if , then . Hence, relabeling a with x, we remain in Case 1, and in four out of these five possible relabelings, not all remaining vertices of W are in and also they are not all in . So, each of the four relabelings reduces this case to one of the previous ones.
Case 2. and
(see
Figure 14).
First, we focus on . To distinguish from we have . Recall that consecutive vertices cannot be in W. So, to distinguish from we have , which covers also the case . And to distinguish from , we have , which covers also the case . But we need to distinguish also from , for which we need a vertex of . Consequently, . But to distinguish from we need a vertex in other than , a contradiction.
Case 3. and .
Thus, . We distinguish two subcases.
At the moment, we have a sequence of 5 consecutive vertices without a border. The vertices in this sequence should be distinguished by three remaining vertices of W, which is impossible.
Subcase 3.2. , but
(see
Figure 16).
At the moment, there is a sequence of four vertices without a border , , and so . To distinguish from , we have , and to distinguish from , we have . Finally, to distinguish from , we have which covers also the case (recall that since W does not contain consecutive vertices).
Now, we consider . To distinguish from , W must contain a vertex of , which covers also (recall that the case was already considered in Case 2), and so . To distinguish from , W must contain a vertex of (since ), and so .
Now, if , then . So considering and instead of and reduces the problem to Case 1 (recall that ). Hence, .
So , , and . But to distinguish from , W must contain a vertex in other than , a contradiction.
Thus, it remains to consider the last case, namely, when . But since all the other cases were solved already, we may assume that and .
Case 4. ,
and
(see
Figure 17).
Obviously, two vertices from are in L, and two are in R. We assume that and . To distinguish from , W must contain a vertex in , which covers also the case . So we distinguish 2 subcases.
Subcase 4.1. .
To distinguish from , W must contain a vertex in , and so either and , or and . Since in the later case and are not distinguished, we conclude that and .
Now, consider and . We have , , and either and or and . However, both cases were already excluded in the previous paragraph.
Subcase 4.2. .
To distinguish from , W must contain a vertex in , and so either and , or and . Since in the former case and are not distinguished, we conclude that and .
Now consider and . We have , , and either and , or and . However, both cases were already excluded, which completes the proof. ☐