The crossing number of a graph $G$ is the minimum number of edge crossings over all drawings of $G$ in the plane. A graph $G$ is $k$-crossing-critical if its crossing number is at least $k$, but if we remove any edge of $G$, its crossing number drops below $k$. There are examples of $k$-crossing-critical graphs that do not have drawings with exactly $k$ crossings. Richter and Thomassen proved in 1993 that if $G$ is $k$-crossing-critical, then its crossing number is at most $2.5k+16$. We improve this bound to $2k+6\sqrt{k}+44$.
It is very well-known that there are precisely two minimal non-planar graphs: $K_5$ and $K_{3,3}$ (degree 2 vertices being irrelevant in this context). In the language of crossing numbers, these are the only 1-crossing-critical graphs: they each have crossing number at least one, and every proper subgraph has crossing number less than one. In 1987, Kochol exhibited an infinite family of 3-connected, simple 2-crossing-critical graphs. In this work, we: (i) determine all the 3-connected 2-crossing-critical graphs that contain a subdivision of the Möbius Ladder $V_{10}$; (ii) show how to obtain a…
After $2$-crossing-critical graphs were characterized in 2016, their most general subfamily, large $3$-connected $2$-crossing-critical graphs, has attracted separate attention. This paper presents sharp upper and lower bounds for their domination and independence number.
A graph $G$ is {$k$-crossing-critical} if $cr(G)\ge k$, but $cr(G\setminus e)<k$ for each edge $e\in E(G)$, where $cr(G)$ is the crossing number of $G$. It is known that for any $k$-crossing-critical graph $G$, $cr(G)\le 2.5k+16$ holds, and in particular, if $δ(G)\ge 4$, then $cr(G)\le 2k+35$ holds, where $δ(G)$ is the minimum degree of $G$. In this paper, we improve these upper bounds to $2.5k +2.5$ and $2k+8$ respectively. In particular, for any $k$-crossing-critical graph $G$ with $n$ vertices, if $δ(G)\ge 5$, then $cr(G)\le 2k-\sqrt k/2n+35/6$ holds.
Siran constructed infinite families of k-crossing-critical graphs for every k=>3 and Kochol constructed such families of simple graphs for every k=>2. Richter and Thomassen argued that, for any given k>=1 and r>=6, there are only finitely many simple k-crossing-critical graphs with minimum degree r. Salazar observed that the same argument implies such a conclusion for simple k-crossing-critical graphs of prescribed average degree r>6. He established existence of infinite families of simple k-crossing-critical graphs with any prescribed rational average degree r in [4,6) for infinitely many k a…
A graph is crossing-critical if the removal of any of its edges decreases its crossing number. This work is motivated by the following question: to what extent is crossing- criticality a property that is inherent to the structure of a graph, and to what extent can it be induced on a noncritical graph by multiplying (all or some of) its edges? It is shown that if a nonplanar graph G is obtained by adding an edge to a cubic polyhedral graph, and G is sufficiently connected, then G can be made crossing-critical by a suitable multiplication of edges.
A conjecture of Richter and Salazar about graphs that are critical for a fixed crossing number $k$ is that they have bounded bandwidth. A weaker well-known conjecture of Richter is that their maximum degree is bounded in terms of $k$. In this note we disprove these conjectures for every $k\ge 171$, by providing examples of $k$-crossing-critical graphs with arbitrarily large maximum degree.
We show that every sufficiently large plane triangulation has a large collection of nested cycles that either are pairwise disjoint, or pairwise intersect in exactly one vertex, or pairwise intersect in exactly two vertices. We apply this result to show that for each fixed positive integer $k$, there are only finitely many $k$-crossing-critical simple graphs of average degree at least six. Combined with the recent constructions of crossing-critical graphs given by Bokal, this settles the question of for which numbers $q>0$ there is an infinite family of $k$-crossing-critical simple graphs of a…
Answering an open question from 2007, we construct infinite $k$-crossing-critical families of graphs that contain vertices of any prescribed odd degree, for any sufficiently large~$k$. To answer this question, we introduce several properties of infinite families of graphs and operations on the families allowing us to obtain new families preserving those properties. This conceptual setup allows us to answer general questions on behaviour of degrees in crossing-critical graphs: we show that, for any set of integers $D$ such that $\min(D)\geq 3$ and $3,4\in D$, and for any sufficiently large $k$,…
We prove that the crossing number of a graph decays in a continuous fashion in the following sense. For any epsilon>0 there is a delta>0 such that for a sufficiently large n, every graph G with n vertices and m > n^{1+epsilon} edges, has a subgraph G' of at most (1-delta)m edges and crossing number at least (1-epsilon)cr(G). This generalizes the result of J. Fox and Cs. Toth.
Siran constructed infinite families of k-crossing-critical graphs for every k > 2 and Kochol constructed such families of simple graphs for every k > 1. Richter and Thomassen argued that, for any given k > 0 and r > 5, there are only finitely many simple k-crossing-critical graphs with minimum degree r. Salazar observed that the same argument implies such a conclusion for simple k-crossing-critical graphs of prescribed average degree r > 6. He established the existence of infinite families of simple k-crossing-critical graphs with any prescribed rational average degree r in [4, 6) for infinite…
The crossing number of a graph $G$, ${\mbox{cr}}(G)$, is the minimum number of crossings, the pair-crossing number, ${\mbox{pcr}}(G)$, is the minimum number of pairs of crossing edges over all drawings of $G$. In this note we show that ${\mbox{cr}}(G)=O({\mbox{pcr}}(G)^{3/2}\log{\mbox{pcr}}(G))$, which is an improvement of the result of Matoušek, by a log factor.
Structure and generation of crossing-critical graphs
Charles University, Prague（布拉格查理大学）；Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University, Brno（布尔诺马萨里克大学信息学院）；Department of Mathematics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby（本拿比西蒙菲莎大学数学系）
A $c$-crossing-critical graph is one that has crossing number at least $c$ but each of its proper subgraphs has crossing number less than $c$. Recently, a set of explicit construction rules was identified by Bokal, Oporowski, Richter, and Salazar to generate all large $2$-crossing-critical graphs (i.e., all apart from a finite set of small sporadic graphs). They share the property of containing a generalized Wagner graph $V_{10}$ as a subdivision. In this paper, we study these graphs and establish their order, simple crossing number, edge cover number, clique number, maximum degree, chromatic …
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 that if $G$ is a graph with an minimal edge cut $F$ of size three and $G_1$, $G_2$ are the two (augmented) components of $G-F$, then the crossing number of $G$ is equal to the sum of crossing numbers of $G_1$ and $G_2$. Combining with known results, this implies that crossing number is additive over edge-cuts of size $d$ for $d\in\{0, 1, 2, 3\}$, whereas there are counterexamples for every $d\ge 4$. The techniques generalize to show that minor crossing number is additive over edge cuts of arbitrary size, as well as to provide bounds for crossing number additivity in arbitrary surfaces…
In 1930, Kuratowski showed that $K_{3,3}$ and $K_5$ are the only two minor-minimal non-planar graphs. Robertson and Seymour extended finiteness of the set of forbidden minors for any surface. Širáň and Kochol showed that there are infinitely many $k$-crossing-critical graphs for any $k\ge 2$, even if restricted to simple $3$-connected graphs. Recently, $2$-crossing-critical graphs have been completely characterized by Bokal, Oporowski, Richter, and Salazar. We present a simplified description of large 2-crossing-critical graphs and use this simplification to count Hamiltonian cycles in such gr…
Albertson conjectured that if graph $G$ has chromatic number $r$, then the crossing number of $G$ is at least that of the complete graph $K_r$. This conjecture in the case $r=5$ is equivalent to the four color theorem. It was verified for $r=6$ by Oporowski and Zhao. In this paper, we prove the conjecture for $7 \leq r \leq 12$ using results of Dirac; Gallai; and Kostochka and Stiebitz that give lower bounds on the number of edges in critical graphs, together with lower bounds by Pach et.al. on the crossing number of graphs in terms of the number of edges and vertices.
We answer a question of Ahlberg and Steif (2014) by finding the tail behaviour of the crossing probability in near-critical planar percolation. Interestingly, this superexponentially small behaviour is different from the case of dynamical percolation, where the analogous tail probability was proved to be at least exponential and at most superpolynomial by Hammond, Mossel and Pete (2012). The proof is simple, given the scale covariance established by Garban, Pete and Schramm (2013).
