The Z2\mathbb{Z}_2-genus of Kuratowski minors

A drawing of a graph on a surface is independently even if every pair of nonadjacent edges in the drawing crosses an even number of times. The $\mathbb{Z}_2$-genus of a graph $G$ is the minimum $g$ such that $G$ has an independently even drawing on the orientable surface of genus $g$. An unpublished result by Robertson and Seymour implies that for every $t$, every graph of sufficiently large genus contains as a minor a projective $t\times t$ grid or one of the following so-called $t$-Kuratowski graphs: $K_{3,t}$, or $t$ copies of $K_5$ or $K_{3,3}$ sharing at most $2$ common vertices. We show that the $\mathbb{Z}_2$-genus of graphs in these families is unbounded in $t$; in fact, equal to their genus. Together, this implies that the genus of a graph is bounded from above by a function of its $\mathbb{Z}_2$-genus, solving a problem posed by Schaefer and \v{S}tefankovi\v{c}, and giving an approximate version of the Hanani-Tutte theorem on orientable surfaces. We also obtain an analogous result for Euler genus and Euler $\mathbb{Z}_2$-genus of graphs.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures; a few references added and correcte

LIPIcs

The genus g(G) of a graph G is the minimum g such that G has an embedding on the orientable surface M_g of genus g. A drawing of a graph on a surface is independently even if every pair of nonadjacent edges in the drawing crosses an even number of times. The Z_2-genus of a graph G, denoted by g_0(G), is the minimum g such that G has an independently even drawing on M_g. By a result of Battle, Harary, Kodama and Youngs from 1962, the graph genus is additive over 2-connected blocks. In 2013, Schaefer and Stefankovic proved that the Z_2-genus of a graph is additive over 2-connected blocks as well, and asked whether this result can be extended to so-called 2-amalgamations, as an analogue of results by Decker, Glover, Huneke, and Stahl for the genus. We give the following partial answer. If G=G_1 cup G_2, G_1 and G_2 intersect in two vertices u and v, and G-u-v has k connected components (among which we count the edge uv if present), then |g_0(G)-(g_0(G_1)+g_0(G_2))|= m >= 3, we prove that g_0(K_{m,n})/g(K_{m,n})=1-O(1/n). Similar results are proved also for the Euler Z_2-genus. We express the Z_2-genus of a graph using the minimum rank of partial symmetric matrices over Z_2; a problem that might be of independent interest

Genus Distributions of Graphs Constructed Through Amalgamations

Graphs are commonly represented as points in space connected by lines. The points in space are the vertices of the graph, and the lines joining them are the edges of the graph. A general definition of a graph is considered here, where multiple edges are allowed between two vertices and an edge is permitted to connect a vertex to itself. It is assumed that graphs are connected, i.e., any vertex in the graph is reachable from another distinct vertex either directly through an edge connecting them or by a path consisting of intermediate vertices and connecting edges. Under this visual representation, graphs can be drawn on various surfaces. The focus of my research is restricted to a class of surfaces that are characterized as compact connected orientable 2-manifolds. The drawings of graphs on surfaces that are of primary interest follow certain prescribed rules. These are called 2-cellular graph embeddings, or simply embeddings. A well-known closed formula makes it easy to enumerate the total number of 2-cellular embeddings for a given graph over all surfaces. A much harder task is to give a surface-wise breakdown of this number as a sequence of numbers that count the number of 2-cellular embeddings of a graph for each orientable surface. This sequence of numbers for a graph is known as the genus distribution of a graph. Prior research on genus distributions of graphs has primarily focused on making calculations of genus distributions for specific families of graphs. These families of graphs have often been contrived, and the methods used for finding their genus distributions have not been general enough to extend to other graph families. The research I have undertaken aims at developing and using a general method that frames the problem of calculating genus distributions of large graphs in terms of a partitioning of the genus distributions of smaller graphs. To this end, I use various operations such as edge-amalgamation, self-edge-amalgamation, and vertex-amalgamation to construct large graphs out of smaller graphs, by coupling their vertices and edges together in certain consistent ways. This method assumes that the partitioned genus distribution of the smaller graphs is known or is easily calculable by computer, for instance, by using the famous Heffter-Edmonds algorithm. As an outcome of the techniques used, I obtain general recurrences and closed-formulas that give genus distributions for infinitely many recursively specifiable graph families. I also give an easily understood method for finding non-trivial examples of distinct graphs having the same genus distribution. In addition to this, I describe an algorithm that computes the genus distributions for a family of graphs known as the 4-regular outerplanar graphs

The Z_2-Genus of Kuratowski Minors

A drawing of a graph on a surface is independently even if every pair of nonadjacent edges in the drawing crosses an even number of times. The Z_2-genus of a graph G is the minimum g such that G has an independently even drawing on the orientable surface of genus g. An unpublished result by Robertson and Seymour implies that for every t, every graph of sufficiently large genus contains as a minor a projective t x t grid or one of the following so-called t-Kuratowski graphs: K_{3,t}, or t copies of K_5 or K_{3,3} sharing at most 2 common vertices. We show that the Z_2-genus of graphs in these families is unbounded in t; in fact, equal to their genus. Together, this implies that the genus of a graph is bounded from above by a function of its Z_2-genus, solving a problem posed by Schaefer and Stefankovic, and giving an approximate version of the Hanani-Tutte theorem on orientable surfaces

Total embedding distributions of Ringel ladders

The total embedding distributions of a graph is consisted of the orientable embeddings and non- orientable embeddings and have been know for few classes of graphs. The genus distribution of Ringel ladders is determined in [Discrete Mathematics 216 (2000) 235-252] by E.H. Tesar. In this paper, the explicit formula for non-orientable embeddings of Ringel ladders is obtained

Two Results in Drawing Graphs on Surfaces

In this work we present results on crossing-critical graphs drawn on non-planar surfaces and results on edge-hamiltonicity of graphs on the Klein bottle. We first give an infinite family of graphs that are 2-crossing-critical on the projective plane. Using this result, we construct 2-crossing-critical graphs for each non-orientable surface. Next, we use 2-amalgamations to construct 2-crossing-critical graphs for each orientable surface other than the sphere. Finally, we contribute to the pursuit of characterizing 4-connected graphs that embed on the Klein bottle and fail to be edge-hamiltonian. We show that known 4-connected counterexamples to edge-hamiltonicity on the Klein bottle are hamiltonian and their structure allows restoration of edge-hamiltonicity with only a small change