Research in structural graph theory

Issued as final reportNational Science Foundation (U.S.

Minors in expanding graphs

Extending several previous results we obtained nearly tight estimates on the maximum size of a clique-minor in various classes of expanding graphs. These results can be used to show that graphs without short cycles and other H-free graphs contain large clique-minors, resolving some open questions in this area

Nowhere-zero 4-flow in almost Petersen-minor free graphs

AbstractTutte [W.T. Tutte, On the algebraic theory of graph colorings, J. Combin. Theory 1 (1966) 15–20] conjectured that every bridgeless Petersen-minor free graph admits a nowhere-zero 4-flow. Let (P10)μ̄ be the graph obtained from the Petersen graph by contracting μ edges from a perfect matching. In this paper we prove that every bridgeless (P10)3̄-minor free graph admits a nowhere-zero 4-flow

Tree-width and dimension

Over the last 30 years, researchers have investigated connections between dimension for posets and planarity for graphs. Here we extend this line of research to the structural graph theory parameter tree-width by proving that the dimension of a finite poset is bounded in terms of its height and the tree-width of its cover graph.Comment: Updates on solutions of problems and on bibliograph

Graph Theory

Graph theory is a rapidly developing area of mathematics. Recent years have seen the development of deep theories, and the increasing importance of methods from other parts of mathematics. The workshop on Graph Theory brought together together a broad range of researchers to discuss some of the major new developments. There were three central themes, each of which has seen striking recent progress: the structure of graphs with forbidden subgraphs; graph minor theory; and applications of the entropy compression method. The workshop featured major talks on current work in these areas, as well as presentations of recent breakthroughs and connections to other areas. There was a particularly exciting selection of longer talks, including presentations on the structure of graphs with forbidden induced subgraphs, embedding simply connected 2-complexes in 3-space, and an announcement of the solution of the well-known Oberwolfach Problem

Structural Results and Approximation Algorithms in Minor-free Graphs

Planarity has been successfully exploited to design faster and more accurate approximation algorithms for many graph optimization problems. The celebrated theorem of Kuratowski completely characterizes planar graphs as those excluding K_5 and K_{3,3} as minors. Kuratowski's theorem allows one to generalize planar graphs to H-minor-free graphs: those that exclude a fixed graph H as a minor. The deep results of Robertson and Seymour reveal many hidden structures in H-minor-free graphs, that have been used extensively in algorithmic designs. Relying on these structures, we design (i) an (efficient) polynomial time approximation scheme (PTAS) for two different variants of the traveling salesperson problem (TSP) and (ii) simple local search PTASes for r-dominating set and feedback vertex set problems. We then present several results concerning structures of planar graphs. Specifically, we make progresses on two conjectures on existence of large induced forests in planar graphs

EXCLUDING MINORS IN NONPLANAR GRAPHS OF GIRTH AT LEAST FIVE

A graph is quasi 4-connected if it is simple, 3-connected, has at least five vertices, and for every partition (A, B, C) of V(G) either |C|≥4, or G has an edge with one end in A and the other end in B, orone of A,B has at most one vertex. We show that any quasi 4-connected nonplanar graph with minimum degree at least three and no cycle of length less than five has a minor isomorphic to P − 10, the Petersen graph with one edge deleted. We deduce the following weakening of Tutte’s Four Flow Conjecture: every 2-edge connected graph with no minor isomorphic to P − 10 has a nowhere-zero 4-flow. This extends a result of Kilakos and Shepherd who proved the same for 3-regular graphs