Enumeration and Asymptotic Properties of Unlabeled Outerplanar Graphs

Abstract

We determine the exact and asymptotic number of unlabeled outerplanar graphs. The exact number $g_{n}$ of unlabeled outerplanar graphs on $n$ vertices can be computed in polynomial time, and $g_{n}$ is asymptotically $g\, n^{-5/2}\rho^{-n}$, where $g\approx0.00909941$ and $\rho^{-1}\approx7.50360$ can be approximated. Using our enumerative results we investigate several statistical properties of random unlabeled outerplanar graphs on $n$ vertices, for instance concerning connectedness, the chromatic number, and the number of edges. To obtain the results we combine classical cycle index enumeration with recent results from analytic combinatorics.