Let k>0 be an integer, let H be a minor-minimal graph in the projective plane such that every homotopically non-trivial closed curve intersects H at least k times, and let G be the planar double cover of H obtained by lifting G into the universal covering space of the projective plane, the sphere. We prove that G is minor-minimal of branch-width 2k. We also exhibit examples of minor-minimal planar graphs of branch-width 6 that do not arise this way.
Huynh et al. recently showed that a countable graph $G$ which contains every countable planar graph as a subgraph must contain arbitrarily large finite complete graphs as topological minors, and an infinite complete graph as a minor. We strengthen this result by showing that the same conclusion holds, if $G$ contains every countable planar graph as a topological minor. In particular, there is no countable planar graph containing every countable planar graph as a topological minor, answering a question by Diestel and Kühn. Moreover, we construct a locally finite planar graph which contains ever…
Tutte showed that $4$-connected planar graphs are Hamiltonian, but it is well known that $3$-connected planar graphs need not be Hamiltonian. We show that $K_{2,5}$-minor-free $3$-connected planar graphs are Hamiltonian. This does not extend to $K_{2,5}$-minor-free $3$-connected graphs in general, as shown by the Petersen graph, and does not extend to $K_{2,6}$-minor-free $3$-connected planar graphs, as we show by an infinite family of examples.
Free-minor closed classes [2] and free-planar graphs [3] are considered. Versions of Kuratowski-like theorem for free-planar graphs and Kuratowski theorem for planar graphs are considered.
The planar graph product structure theorem of Dujmović, Joret, Micek, Morin, Ueckerdt, and Wood [J. ACM 2020] states that every planar graph is a subgraph of the strong product of a graph with bounded treewidth and a path. This result has been the key tool to resolve important open problems regarding queue layouts, nonrepetitive colourings, centered colourings, and adjacency labelling schemes. In this paper, we extend this line of research by utilizing shallow minors to prove analogous product structure theorems for several beyond planar graph classes. The key observation that drives our work …
A graph is nearly embedded in a surface if it consists of graph $G_0$ that is embedded in the surface, together with a bounded number of vortices having no large transactions. It is shown that every large wall (or grid minor) in a nearly embedded graph, many rows of which intersect the embedded subgraph $G_0$ of the near-embedding, contains a large subwall that is planarly embedded within $G_0$. This result provides some hidden details needed for a strong version of the Robertson and Seymour's excluded minor theorem as presented in [K. Kawarabayashi, B. Mohar, Some recent progress and applicat…
In the present paper, we proceed the study of framed $4$-graph minor theory initiated in ``Framed $4$-valent Graph Minor Theory I. Intoduction. Planarity Criterion '' and justify the planarity theorem for arbitrary framed 4-graphs; besides, we prove analogous results for embeddability in the projective plane.
The present paper is the first one in the sequence of papers about a simple class of {\em framed $4$-graphs}; the goal of the present paper is to collect some well-known results on planarity and to reformulate them in the language of {\em minors}. The goal of the whole sequence is to prove analogues of the Robertson-Seymour-Thomas theorems for framed $4$-graphs: namely, we shall prove that many minor-closed properties are classified by finitely many excluded graphs. From many points of view, framed $4$-graphs are easier to consider than general graphs; on the other hand, framed $4$-graphs are …
Tree decompositions of graphs are of fundamental importance in structural and algorithmic graph theory. Planar decompositions generalise tree decompositions by allowing an arbitrary planar graph to index the decomposition. We prove that every graph that excludes a fixed graph as a minor has a planar decomposition with bounded width and a linear number of bags. The crossing number of a graph is the minimum number of crossings in a drawing of the graph in the plane. We prove that planar decompositions are intimately related to the crossing number. In particular, a graph with bounded degree has l…
We introduce a notion of bipartite minors and prove a bipartite analog of Wagner's theorem: a bipartite graph is planar if and only if it does not contain $K_{3,3}$ as a bipartite minor. Similarly, we provide a forbidden minor characterization for outerplanar graphs and forests. We then establish a recursive characterization of bipartite $(2,2)$-Laman graphs --- a certain family of graphs that contains all maximal bipartite planar graphs.
The Graph Minor Theorem of Robertson and Seymour asserts that any graph property, whatsoever, is determined by an associated finite list of graphs. We view this as an impressive generalization of Kuratowski's theorem, which characterizes planarity in terms of two forbidden subgraphs, $K_5$ and $K_{3,3}$. Robertson and Seymour's result empowers students to devise their own Kuratowski type theorems; we propose several undergraduate research projects with that goal. As an explicit example, we determine the seven forbidden minors for a property we call strongly almost--planar (SAP). A graph is SAP…
Given graphs $G$ and $H$, we propose a method to implicitly enumerate topological-minor-embeddings of $H$ in $G$ using decision diagrams. We show a useful application of our method to enumerating subgraphs characterized by forbidden topological minors, that is, planar, outerplanar, series-parallel, and cactus subgraphs. Computational experiments show that our method can find all planar subgraphs in a given graph at most five orders of magnitude faster than a naive backtracking-based method.
It is known that any planar graph with diameter D has treewidth O(D), and this fact has been used as the basis for several planar graph algorithms. We investigate the extent to which similar relations hold in other graph families. We show that treewidth is bounded by a function of the diameter in a minor-closed family, if and only if some apex graph does not belong to the family. In particular, the O(D) bound above can be extended to bounded-genus graphs. As a consequence, we extend several approximation algorithms and exact subgraph isomorphism algorithms from planar graphs to other graph fam…
Matching minors are a specialisation of minors fit for the study of graph with perfect matchings. The notion of matching minors has been used to give a structural description of bipartite graphs on which the number of perfect matchings can becomputed efficiently, based on a result of Little, by McCuaig et al. in 1999.In this paper we generalise basic ideas from the graph minor series by Robertson and Seymour to the setting of bipartite graphs with perfect matchings. We introducea version of Erdos-Posa property for matching minors and find a direct link between this property and planarity. From…
In 1965, Vizing proved that every planar graph $G$ with maximum degree $Δ\geq 8$ is edge $Δ$-colorable. It is also proved that every planar graph $G$ with maximum degree $Δ=7$ is edge $Δ$-colorable by Sanders and Zhao, independently by Zhang. In this paper, we extend the above results by showing that every $K_5$-minor free graph with maximum degree $Δ$ at least seven is edge $Δ$-colorable.
We prove that graphs excluding a fixed immersion have bounded nonrepetitive chromatic number. More generally, we prove that if $H$ is a fixed planar graph that has a planar embedding with all the vertices with degree at least 4 on a single face, then graphs excluding $H$ as a topological minor have bounded nonrepetitive chromatic number. This is the largest class of graphs known to have bounded nonrepetitive chromatic number.
We construct minor-closed addable families of graphs that are subcritical and contain all planar graphs. This contradicts (one direction of) a well-known conjecture of Noy.
In [Directed tree-width, J. Combin. Theory Ser. B 82 (2001), 138-154] we introduced the notion of tree-width of directed graphs and presented a conjecture, formulated during discussions with Noga Alon and Bruce Reed, stating that a digraph of huge tree-width has a large "cylindrical grid" minor. Here we prove the conjecture for planar digraphs, but many steps of the proof work in general. This is an unedited and unpolished manuscript from October 2001. Since many people asked for copies we are making it available in the hope that it may be useful. The conjecture was proved by Kawarabayashi and…
In this paper we prove two main results about obstruction to graph planarity. One is that, if $G$ is a 3-connected graph with a $K_5$-minor and $T$ is a triangle of $G$, then $G$ has a $K_5$-minor $H$, such that $E(T)\cont E(H)$. Other is that if $G$ is a 3-connected simple non-planar graph not isomorphic to $K_5$ and $e,f\in E(G)$, then $G$ has a minor $H$ such that $e,f\in E(H)$ and, up to isomorphisms, $H$ is one of the four non-isomorphic simple graphs obtained from $K_{3,3}$ by the addiction of \,0, 1 or 2 edges. We generalize this second result to the class of the regular matroids.
Let $a,b,c,d$ be four vertices in a graph $G$. A \emph{$K_4$-minor rooted} at $a,b,c,d$ consists of four pairwise-disjoint pairwise-adjacent connected subgraphs of $G$, respectively containing $a,b,c,d$. We characterise precisely when $G$ contains a $K_4$-minor rooted at $a,b,c,d$ by describing six classes of obstructions, which are the edge-maximal graphs containing no $K_4$-minor rooted at $a,b,c,d$. The following two special cases illustrate the full characterisation: (1) A 4-connected non-planar graph contains a $K_4$-minor rooted at $a,b,c,d$ for every choice of $a,b,c,d$. (2) A 3-connect…
Let $H$ be a planar graph. By a classical result of Robertson and Seymour, there is a function $f:\mathbb{N} \to \mathbb{R}$ such that for all $k \in \mathbb{N}$ and all graphs $G$, either $G$ contains $k$ vertex-disjoint subgraphs each containing $H$ as a minor, or there is a subset $X$ of at most $f(k)$ vertices such that $G-X$ has no $H$-minor. We prove that this remains true with $f(k) = c k \log k$ for some constant $c=c(H)$. This bound is best possible, up to the value of $c$, and improves upon a recent result of Chekuri and Chuzhoy [STOC 2013], who established this with $f(k) = c k \log…
Carsten Thomassen conjectured that every longest circuit in a 3-connected graph has a chord. We prove the conjecture for graphs having no $K_{3,3}$ minor, and consequently for planar graphs.
Instituto de Ingeniería Matemática – CIMFAV, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de valparaíso（瓦尔帕莱索大学工程学院数学工程研究所-CIMFAV）；Universidade Federal do ABC（ABC联邦大学）
In the 1960s, Erdős and Pósa proved that there is a packing-covering duality for cycles in graphs. As part of the graph minor project, Robertson and Seymour greatly extended this: there is such a duality for $H$-expansions in graphs if and only if $H$ is a planar graph (this includes the previous result for $H=K_3$). We consider vertex labelled graphs and minors and provide such a characterisation for $2$-connected labelled graphs $H$.
Institute for Basic Science（基础科学研究所）；Simon Fraser University（西蒙菲莎大学）；Charles University（查理大学）；Technical University of Denmark（丹麦技术大学）；Monash University（莫纳什大学）
Thomassen proved that all planar graphs are $5$-choosable. Škrekovski strengthened the result by showing that all $K_{5}$-minor-free graphs are $5$-choosable. Dvořák and Postle pointed out that all planar graphs are DP-$5$-colorable. In this note, we first improve these results by showing that every $K_{5}$-minor-free or $K_{3, 3}$-minor-free graph is DP-$5$-colorable. In the final section, we further improve these results under the term strictly $f$-degenerate transversal.
Max Independent Set Remains NP-hard when Excluding a Planar Induced Minor
CNRS, ENS de Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, LIP UMR 5668（法国国家科学研究中心、里昂高等师范学院、里昂第一大学、LIP联合研究实验室）；Department of Mathematics, Hanyang University（汉阳大学数学系）
We prove that, for each nonnegative integer k and each matroid N, if M is a 3-connected matroid containing N as a minor, and the the branch width of M is sufficiently large, then there is a k-element subset X of E(M) such that one of M\X and M/X is 3-connected and contains N as a minor.
For a finite collection of graphs ${\cal F}$, the \textsc{${\cal F}$-TM-Deletion} problem has as input an $n$-vertex graph $G$ and an integer $k$ and asks whether there exists a set $S \subseteq V(G)$ with $|S| \leq k$ such that $G \setminus S$ does not contain any of the graphs in ${\cal F}$ as a topological minor. We prove that for every such ${\cal F}$, \textsc{${\cal F}$-TM-Deletion} is fixed parameter tractable on planar graphs. Our algorithm runs in a $2^{\mathcal{O}(k^2)}\cdot n^{2}$ time or, alternatively in $2^{\mathcal{O}(k)}\cdot n^{4}$ time. Our techniques can easily be extended to…
It is well known, due to Lindström, that the minors of a (real or complex) matrix can be expressed in terms of weights of flows in a planar directed graph. Another classical fact is that there are plenty of homogeneous quadratic relations involving flag minors, or Plücker coordinates of the corresponding flag manifold. Generalizing and unifying these facts and their tropical counterparts, we consider a wide class of functions on $2^{[n]}$ that are generated by flows in a planar graph and take values in an arbitrary commutative semiring, where $[n]=\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$. We show that the ``universa…
There has been much recent interest in random graphs sampled uniformly from the n-vertex graphs in a suitable minor-closed class, such as the class of all planar graphs. Here we use combinatorial and probabilistic methods to investigate a more general model. We consider random graphs from a `well-behaved' class of graphs: examples of such classes include all minor-closed classes of graphs with 2-connected excluded minors (such as forests, series-parallel graphs and planar graphs), the class of graphs embeddable on any given surface, and the class of graphs with at most k vertex-disjoint cycles…
For a planar graph $G$, Borodin stated that $G$ is $(Δ+1)$-edge-choosable if $Δ\geq9$ and later Bonamy showed that $G$ is $9$-edge-choosable if $Δ=8$. At the same time, Borodin et al. proved that $G$ is $Δ$-edge-choosable if $Δ\geq12$. In the paper, we extend these results to $K_5$-minor free graphs.
A clique-coloring of a graph $G$ is a coloring of the vertices of $G$ so that no maximal clique of size at least two is monochromatic. The clique-hypergraph, $\mathcal{H}(G)$, of a graph $G$ has $V(G)$ as its set of vertices and the maximal cliques of $G$ as its hyperedges. A (vertex) coloring of $\mathcal{H}(G)$ is a clique-coloring of $G$. The clique-chromatic number of $G$ is the least number of colors for which $G$ admits a clique-coloring. Every planar graph has been proved to be 3-clique-colorable (Electr. J. Combin. 6 (1999), \#R26). Recently, we showed that every claw-free planar graph…
A graph G is weakly 4-connected if it is 3-connected, has at least five vertices, and for every pair of sets (A,B) with union V(G) and intersection of size three such that no edge has one end in A-B and the other in B-A, one of the induced subgraphs G[A], G[B] has at most four edges. We describe a set of constructions that starting from a weakly 4-connected planar graph G produce a finite list of non-planar weakly 4-connected graphs, each having a minor isomorphic to G, such that every non-planar weakly 4-connected graph H that has a minor isomorphic to G has a minor isomorphic to one of the g…
Suppose $G$ is a graph with degrees bounded by $d$, and one needs to remove more than $εn$ of its edges in order to make it planar. We show that in this case the statistics of local neighborhoods around vertices of $G$ is far from the statistics of local neighborhoods around vertices of any planar graph $G'$ with the same degree bound. In fact, a similar result is proved for any minor-closed property of bounded degree graphs. As an immediate corollary of the above result we infer that many well studied graph properties, like being planar, outer-planar, series-parallel, bounded genus, bounded t…
We show that planar graphs have bounded queue-number, thus proving a conjecture of Heath, Leighton and Rosenberg from 1992. The key to the proof is a new structural tool called layered partitions, and the result that every planar graph has a vertex-partition and a layering, such that each part has a bounded number of vertices in each layer, and the quotient graph has bounded treewidth. This result generalises for graphs of bounded Euler genus. Moreover, we prove that every graph in a minor-closed class has such a layered partition if and only if the class excludes some apex graph. Building on …
We prove that, for every positive integer k, there is an integer N such that every 4-connected non-planar graph with at least N vertices has a minor isomorphic to K_{4,k}, the graph obtained from a cycle of length 2k+1 by adding an edge joining every pair of vertices at distance exactly k, or the graph obtained from a cycle of length k by adding two vertices adjacent to each other and to every vertex on the cycle. We also prove a version of this for subdivisions rather than minors, and relax the connectivity to allow 3-cuts with one side planar and of bounded size. We deduce that for every int…
We prove two results: 1. A graph $G$ on at least seven vertices with a vertex $v$ such that $G-v$ is planar and $t$ triangles satisfies $|E(G)| \leq 3|V(G)|- 9 + t/3$. 2. For $p=2,3,\ldots,9$, a triangle-free graph $G$ on at least $2p-5$ vertices with no $K_p$-minor satisfies $|E(G)|\leq (p-2)|V(G)| - (p-2)^2$.
DeVos, Kwon, and Oum introduced the concept of branch-depth of matroids as a natural analogue of tree-depth of graphs. They conjectured that a matroid of sufficiently large branch-depth contains the uniform matroid $U_{n,2n}$ or the cycle matroid of a large fan graph as a minor. We prove that matroids with sufficiently large branch-depth either contain the cycle matroid of a large fan graph as a minor or have large branch-width. As a corollary, we prove their conjecture for matroids representable over a fixed finite field and quasi-graphic matroids, where the uniform matroid is not an option.
A graph $G$ is a non-separating planar graph if there is a drawing $D$ of $G$ on the plane such that (1) no two edges cross each other in $D$ and (2) for any cycle $C$ in $D$, any two vertices not in $C$ are on the same side of $C$ in $D$. Non-separating planar graphs are closed under taking minors and are a subclass of planar graphs and a superclass of outerplanar graphs. In this paper, we show that a graph is a non-separating planar graph if and only if it does not contain $K_1 \cup K_4$ or $K_1 \cup K_{2,3}$ or $K_{1,1,3}$ as a minor. Furthermore, we provide a structural characterisation of…
We prove that every simple connected graph with no $K_5$ minor admits a proper 4-coloring such that the neighborhood of each vertex $v$ having more than one neighbor is not monochromatic, unless the graph is isomorphic to the cycle of length 5. This generalizes the result by S.-J. Kim, S. J. Lee, and W.-J. Park on planar graphs.
A clique-coloring of a given graph $G$ is a coloring of the vertices of $G$ such that no maximal clique of size at least two is monocolored. The clique-chromatic number of $G$ is the least number of colors for which $G$ admits a clique-coloring. It has been proved that every planar graph is $3$-clique colorable and every claw-free planar graph, different from an odd cycle, is $2$-clique colorable. In this paper, we generalize these results to $K_{3,3}$-minor free ($K_{3,3}$-subdivision free) graphs.
A colouring of a graph is "nonrepetitive" if for every path of even order, the sequence of colours on the first half of the path is different from the sequence of colours on the second half. We show that planar graphs have nonrepetitive colourings with a bounded number of colours, thus proving a conjecture of Alon, Grytczuk, Haluszczak and Riordan (2002). We also generalise this result for graphs of bounded Euler genus, graphs excluding a fixed minor, and graphs excluding a fixed topological minor.
