Construction of planar 4-connected triangulations

In this article we describe a recursive structure for the class of 4-connected triangulations or - equivalently - cyclically 4-connected plane cubic graphs

Making triangulations 4-connected using flips

We show that any combinatorial triangulation on n vertices can be transformed into a 4-connected one using at most floor((3n - 9)/5) edge flips. We also give an example of an infinite family of triangulations that requires this many flips to be made 4-connected, showing that our bound is tight. In addition, for n >= 19, we improve the upper bound on the number of flips required to transform any 4-connected triangulation into the canonical triangulation (the triangulation with two dominant vertices), matching the known lower bound of 2n - 15. Our results imply a new upper bound on the diameter of the flip graph of 5.2n - 33.6, improving on the previous best known bound of 6n - 30.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures. Accepted to CGTA special issue for CCCG 2011. Conference version available at http://2011.cccg.ca/PDFschedule/papers/paper34.pd

Four-connected triangulations of planar point sets

In this paper, we consider the problem of determining in polynomial time whether a given planar point set $P$ of $n$ points admits 4-connected triangulation. We propose a necessary and sufficient condition for recognizing $P$, and present an $O(n^3)$ algorithm of constructing a 4-connected triangulation of $P$. Thus, our algorithm solves a longstanding open problem in computational geometry and geometric graph theory. We also provide a simple method for constructing a noncomplex triangulation of $P$ which requires $O(n^2)$ steps. This method provides a new insight to the structure of 4-connected triangulation of point sets.Comment: 35 pages, 35 figures, 5 reference

Every 4-connected graph with crossing number 2 is Hamiltonian

A seminal theorem of Tutte states that 4-connected planar graphs are Hamiltonian. Applying a result of Thomas and Yu, one can show that every 4-connected graph with crossing number 1 is Hamiltonian. In this paper, we continue along this path and prove the titular statement. We also discuss the traceability and Hamiltonicity of 3-connected graphs with small crossing number and few 3-cuts, and present applications of our results

Circumference of essentially 4-connected planar triangulations

A $3$-connected graph $G$ is essentially $4$-connected if, for any $3$-cut $S\subseteq V(G)$ of $G$, at most one component of $G-S$ contains at least two vertices. We prove that every essentially $4$-connected maximal planar graph $G$ on $n$ vertices contains a cycle of length at least $\frac{2}{3}(n+4)$; moreover, this bound is sharp