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Hadwiger Number and the Cartesian Product Of Graphs
The Hadwiger number mr(G) of a graph G is the largest integer n for which the
complete graph K_n on n vertices is a minor of G. Hadwiger conjectured that for
every graph G, mr(G) >= chi(G), where chi(G) is the chromatic number of G. In
this paper, we study the Hadwiger number of the Cartesian product G [] H of
graphs.
As the main result of this paper, we prove that mr(G_1 [] G_2) >= h\sqrt{l}(1
- o(1)) for any two graphs G_1 and G_2 with mr(G_1) = h and mr(G_2) = l. We
show that the above lower bound is asymptotically best possible. This
asymptotically settles a question of Z. Miller (1978).
As consequences of our main result, we show the following:
1. Let G be a connected graph. Let the (unique) prime factorization of G be
given by G_1 [] G_2 [] ... [] G_k. Then G satisfies Hadwiger's conjecture if k
>= 2.log(log(chi(G))) + c', where c' is a constant. This improves the
2.log(chi(G))+3 bound of Chandran and Sivadasan.
2. Let G_1 and G_2 be two graphs such that chi(G_1) >= chi(G_2) >=
c.log^{1.5}(chi(G_1)), where c is a constant. Then G_1 [] G_2 satisfies
Hadwiger's conjecture.
3. Hadwiger's conjecture is true for G^d (Cartesian product of G taken d
times) for every graph G and every d >= 2. This settles a question by Chandran
and Sivadasan (They had shown that the Hadiwger's conjecture is true for G^d if
d >= 3.)Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, major update: lower and upper bound proofs have
been revised. The bounds are now asymptotically tigh
Explicit combinatorial interpretation of Kerov character polynomials as numbers of permutation factorizations
We find an explicit combinatorial interpretation of the coefficients of Kerov
character polynomials which express the value of normalized irreducible
characters of the symmetric groups S(n) in terms of free cumulants R_2,R_3,...
of the corresponding Young diagram. Our interpretation is based on counting
certain factorizations of a given permutation
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