The circumference of a graph with no K3,t-minor, II

The class of graphs with no K3;t-minors, t>=3, contains all planar graphs and plays an important role in graph minor theory. In 1992, Seymour and Thomas conjectured the existence of a function α(t)>0 and a constant β>0, such that every 3-connected n-vertex graph with no K3;t-minors, t>=3, contains a cycle of length at least α(t)nβ. The purpose of this paper is to con¯rm this conjecture with α(t)=(1/2)t(t-1) and β=log1729 2.preprin

Characterizations of classes of graphs by forbidden minors

En aquest treball tractem el problema de descriure classes de grafs especificades per un menor prohibit. Concretament, presentem resultats de Wagner que caracteritzen grafs sense K5 o bé K3,3 com a menor. També donem caracteritzacions de grafs que no contenen la roda W4 amb 4 vèrtexs a la circumferència; el graf complet amb 5 vèrtexs sense una aresta; el prisme triangular; i la roda W5 amb 5 vèrtexs a la circumferència. Com a una de les eines utilitzem el teorema de Tutte de les rodes, del qual també donem una prova. La majoria dels resultats és àmpliament coneguda, però les demostracions no són disponibles fàcilment. Són complicades de trobar, incòmodes de llegir i usen terminologia obsoleta. La contribució principal d'aquest treball és recollir les demostracions en un sol lloc i presentar-les en un llenguatge modern.. Study the classical results by Wagner, Tutte and others leading to the characterizations of grahps not containing a given graph as a minor. This includes Tutte's Wheel Theorem as a preliminary. The goal is to write down complete proofs for several important forbidden minors, including K_5 and K_{3,3}

Defective and Clustered Graph Colouring

Consider the following two ways to colour the vertices of a graph where the requirement that adjacent vertices get distinct colours is relaxed. A colouring has "defect" $d$ if each monochromatic component has maximum degree at most $d$. A colouring has "clustering" $c$ if each monochromatic component has at most $c$ vertices. This paper surveys research on these types of colourings, where the first priority is to minimise the number of colours, with small defect or small clustering as a secondary goal. List colouring variants are also considered. The following graph classes are studied: outerplanar graphs, planar graphs, graphs embeddable in surfaces, graphs with given maximum degree, graphs with given maximum average degree, graphs excluding a given subgraph, graphs with linear crossing number, linklessly or knotlessly embeddable graphs, graphs with given Colin de Verdi\`ere parameter, graphs with given circumference, graphs excluding a fixed graph as an immersion, graphs with given thickness, graphs with given stack- or queue-number, graphs excluding $K_t$ as a minor, graphs excluding $K_{s,t}$ as a minor, and graphs excluding an arbitrary graph $H$ as a minor. Several open problems are discussed.Comment: This is a preliminary version of a dynamic survey to be published in the Electronic Journal of Combinatoric

The circumference of a graph with no K3, t-minor

It was shown by Chen and Yu that every 3-connected planar graph G contains a cycle of length at least | G |log 3 2, where | G | denotes the number of vertices of G. Thomas made a conjecture in a more general setting: there exists a function β (t) > 0 for t ≥ 3, such that every 3-connected graph G with no K3, t-minor, t ≥ 3, contains a cycle of length at least | G |β (t). We prove that this conjecture is true with β (t) = log8 t t + 1 2. We also show that every 2-connected graph with no K2, t-minor, t ≥ 3, contains a cycle of length at least | G | / tt - 1. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.preprin

On size, circumference and circuit removal in 3-connected matroids

This paper proves several extremal results for 3-connected matroids. In particular, it is shown that, for such a matroid M, (i) if the rank r(M) of M is at least six, then the circumference c(M) of M is at least six and, provided |E(M)| ≥4r(M) - 5, there is a circuit whose deletion from M leaves a 3-connected matroid; (ii) if r(M) ≥4 and M has a basis B such that M\e is not 3-connected for all e in E(M) - B, then |E(M)| ≤3r(M) - 4; and (iii) if M is minimally 3-connected but not hamiltonian, then |E(M)| ≤3r(M) - c(M). © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

Rooted structures in graphs: a project on Hadwiger's conjecture, rooted minors, and Tutte cycles

Hadwigers Vermutung ist eine der anspruchsvollsten Vermutungen für Graphentheoretiker und bietet eine weitreichende Verallgemeinerung des Vierfarbensatzes. Ausgehend von dieser offenen Frage der strukturellen Graphentheorie werden gewurzelte Strukturen in Graphen diskutiert. Eine Transversale einer Partition ist definiert als eine Menge, welche genau ein Element aus jeder Menge der Partition enthält und sonst nichts. Für einen Graphen G und eine Teilmenge T seiner Knotenmenge ist ein gewurzelter Minor von G ein Minor, der T als Transversale seiner Taschen enthält. Sei T eine Transversale einer Färbung eines Graphen, sodass es ein System von kanten-disjunkten Wegen zwischen allen Knoten aus T gibt; dann stellt sich die Frage, ob es möglich ist, die Existenz eines vollständigen, in T gewurzelten Minors zu gewährleisten. Diese Frage ist eng mit Hadwigers Vermutung verwoben: Eine positive Antwort würde Hadwigers Vermutung für eindeutig färbbare Graphen bestätigen. In dieser Arbeit wird ebendiese Fragestellung untersucht sowie weitere Konzepte vorgestellt, welche bekannte Ideen der strukturellen Graphentheorie um eine Verwurzelung erweitern. Beispielsweise wird diskutiert, inwiefern hoch zusammenhängende Teilmengen der Knotenmenge einen hoch zusammenhängenden, gewurzelten Minor erzwingen. Zudem werden verschiedene Ideen von Hamiltonizität in planaren und nicht-planaren Graphen behandelt.Hadwiger's Conjecture is one of the most tantalising conjectures for graph theorists and offers a far-reaching generalisation of the Four-Colour-Theorem. Based on this major issue in structural graph theory, this thesis explores rooted structures in graphs. A transversal of a partition is a set which contains exactly one element from each member of the partition and nothing else. Given a graph G and a subset T of its vertex set, a rooted minor of G is a minor such that T is a transversal of its branch set. Assume that a graph has a transversal T of one of its colourings such that there is a system of edge-disjoint paths between all vertices from T; it comes natural to ask whether such graphs contain a minor rooted at T. This question of containment is strongly related to Hadwiger's Conjecture; indeed, a positive answer would prove Hadwiger's Conjecture for uniquely colourable graphs. This thesis studies the aforementioned question and besides, presents several other concepts of attaching rooted relatedness to ideas in structural graph theory. For instance, whether a highly connected subset of the vertex set forces a highly connected rooted minor. Moreover, several ideas of Hamiltonicity in planar and non-planar graphs are discussed

Turing Kernelization for Finding Long Paths in Graphs Excluding a Topological Minor

The notion of Turing kernelization investigates whether a polynomial-time algorithm can solve an NP-hard problem, when it is aided by an oracle that can be queried for the answers to bounded-size subproblems. One of the main open problems in this direction is whether k-PATH admits a polynomial Turing kernel: can a polynomial-time algorithm determine whether an undirected graph has a simple path of length k, using an oracle that answers queries of size k^{O(1)}? We show this can be done when the input graph avoids a fixed graph H as a topological minor, thereby significantly generalizing an earlier result for bounded-degree and K_{3,t}-minor-free graphs. Moreover, we show that k-PATH even admits a polynomial Turing kernel when the input graph is not H-topological-minor-free itself, but contains a known vertex modulator of size bounded polynomially in the parameter, whose deletion makes it so. To obtain our results, we build on the graph minors decomposition to show that any H-topological-minor-free graph that does not contain a k-path has a separation that can safely be reduced after communication with the oracle