Surfaces, Tree-Width, Clique-Minors, and Partitions

In 1971, Chartrand, Geller, and Hedetniemi conjectured that the edge set of a planar graph may be partitioned into two subsets, each of which induces an outerplanar graph. Some partial results towards this conjecture are presented. One such result, in which a planar graph may be thus edge partitioned into two series-parallel graphs, has nice generalizations for graphs embedded onto an arbitrary surface and graphs with no large clique-minor. Several open questions are raised. © 2000 Academic Press

Edge Partitions of Optimal 22-plane and 33-plane Graphs

A topological graph is a graph drawn in the plane. A topological graph is $k$-plane, $k>0$, if each edge is crossed at most $k$ times. We study the problem of partitioning the edges of a $k$-plane graph such that each partite set forms a graph with a simpler structure. While this problem has been studied for $k=1$, we focus on optimal $2$-plane and $3$-plane graphs, which are $2$-plane and $3$-plane graphs with maximum density. We prove the following results. (i) It is not possible to partition the edges of a simple optimal $2$-plane graph into a $1$-plane graph and a forest, while (ii) an edge partition formed by a $1$-plane graph and two plane forests always exists and can be computed in linear time. (iii) We describe efficient algorithms to partition the edges of a simple optimal $2$-plane graph into a $1$-plane graph and a plane graph with maximum vertex degree $12$, or with maximum vertex degree $8$ if the optimal $2$-plane graph is such that its crossing-free edges form a graph with no separating triangles. (iv) We exhibit an infinite family of simple optimal $2$-plane graphs such that in any edge partition composed of a $1$-plane graph and a plane graph, the plane graph has maximum vertex degree at least $6$ and the $1$-plane graph has maximum vertex degree at least $12$. (v) We show that every optimal $3$-plane graph whose crossing-free edges form a biconnected graph can be decomposed, in linear time, into a $2$-plane graph and two plane forests

The α\alpha-index of graphs without intersecting triangles/quadrangles as a minor

The $A_{\alpha}$-matrix of a graph $G$ is the convex linear combination of the adjacency matrix $A(G)$ and the diagonal matrix of vertex degrees $D(G)$, i.e., $A_{\alpha}(G) = \alpha D(G) + (1 - \alpha)A(G)$, where $0\leq\alpha \leq1$. The $\alpha$-index of $G$ is the largest eigenvalue of $A_\alpha(G)$. Particularly, the matrix $A_0(G)$ (resp. $2A_{\frac{1}{2}}(G)$) is exactly the adjacency matrix (resp. signless Laplacian matrix) of $G$. He, Li and Feng [arXiv:2301.06008 (2023)] determined the extremal graphs with maximum adjacency spectral radius among all graphs of sufficiently large order without intersecting triangles and quadrangles as a minor, respectively. Motivated by the above results of He, Li and Feng, in this paper we characterize the extremal graphs with maximum $\alpha$-index among all graphs of sufficiently large order without intersecting triangles and quadrangles as a minor for any $0<\alpha<1$, respectively. As by-products, we determine the extremal graphs with maximum signless Laplacian radius among all graphs of sufficiently large order without intersecting triangles and quadrangles as a minor, respectively.Comment: 15 page

Bounding tree-width via contraction on the projective plane and torus

If X is a collection of edges in a graph G, let G/X denote the contraction of X. Following a question of Oxley and a conjecture of Oporowski, we prove that every projective-planar graph G admits an edge-partition {X,Y} such that G/X and G/Y have tree-width at most three. We prove that every toroidal graph G admits an edge-partition {X,Y} such that G/X and G/Y have tree-width at most three and four, respectively

Hamiltonicity and generalised total colourings of planar graphs

The total generalised colourings considered in this paper are colourings of graphs such that the vertices and edges of the graph which receive the same colour induce subgraphs from two prescribed hereditary graph properties while incident elements receive different colours. The associated total chromatic number is the least number of colours with which this is possible. We study such colourings for sets of planar graphs and determine, in particular, upper bounds for these chromatic numbers for proper colourings of the vertices while the monochromatic edge sets are allowed to be forests. We also prove that if an even planar triangulation has a Hamilton cycle H for which there is no cycle among the edges inside H, then such a graph needs at most four colours for a total colouring as described above. The paper is concluded with some conjectures and open problems.In part by the National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant Numbers 90841, 91128).http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/dmgtam2016Mathematics and Applied Mathematic

Product structure of graph classes with strongly sublinear separators

We investigate the product structure of hereditary graph classes admitting strongly sublinear separators. We characterise such classes as subgraphs of the strong product of a star and a complete graph of strongly sublinear size. In a more precise result, we show that if any hereditary graph class $\mathcal{G}$ admits $O(n^{1-\epsilon})$ separators, then for any fixed $\delta\in(0,\epsilon)$ every $n$-vertex graph in $\mathcal{G}$ is a subgraph of the strong product of a graph $H$ with bounded tree-depth and a complete graph of size $O(n^{1-\epsilon+\delta})$. This result holds with $\delta=0$ if we allow $H$ to have tree-depth $O(\log\log n)$. Moreover, using extensions of classical isoperimetric inequalties for grids graphs, we show the dependence on $\delta$ in our results and the above $\text{td}(H)\in O(\log\log n)$ bound are both best possible. We prove that $n$-vertex graphs of bounded treewidth are subgraphs of the product of a graph with tree-depth $t$ and a complete graph of size $O(n^{1/t})$, which is best possible. Finally, we investigate the conjecture that for any hereditary graph class $\mathcal{G}$ that admits $O(n^{1-\epsilon})$ separators, every $n$-vertex graph in $\mathcal{G}$ is a subgraph of the strong product of a graph $H$ with bounded tree-width and a complete graph of size $O(n^{1-\epsilon})$. We prove this for various classes $\mathcal{G}$ of interest.Comment: v2: added bad news subsection; v3: removed section "Polynomial Expansion Classes" which had an error, added section "Lower Bounds", and added a new author; v4: minor revisions and corrections