Average degree conditions forcing a minor

Mader first proved that high average degree forces a given graph as a minor. Often motivated by Hadwiger's Conjecture, much research has focused on the average degree required to force a complete graph as a minor. Subsequently, various authors have consider the average degree required to force an arbitrary graph $H$ as a minor. Here, we strengthen (under certain conditions) a recent result by Reed and Wood, giving better bounds on the average degree required to force an $H$-minor when $H$ is a sparse graph with many high degree vertices. This solves an open problem of Reed and Wood, and also generalises (to within a constant factor) known results when $H$ is an unbalanced complete bipartite graph

Forcing a sparse minor

This paper addresses the following question for a given graph $H$: what is the minimum number $f(H)$ such that every graph with average degree at least $f(H)$ contains $H$ as a minor? Due to connections with Hadwiger's Conjecture, this question has been studied in depth when $H$ is a complete graph. Kostochka and Thomason independently proved that $f(K_t)=ct\sqrt{\ln t}$. More generally, Myers and Thomason determined $f(H)$ when $H$ has a super-linear number of edges. We focus on the case when $H$ has a linear number of edges. Our main result, which complements the result of Myers and Thomason, states that if $H$ has $t$ vertices and average degree $d$ at least some absolute constant, then $f(H)\leq 3.895\sqrt{\ln d}\,t$. Furthermore, motivated by the case when $H$ has small average degree, we prove that if $H$ has $t$ vertices and $q$ edges, then $f(H) \leq t+6.291q$ (where the coefficient of 1 in the $t$ term is best possible)

On \u3cem\u3eK\u3c/em\u3e\u3cem\u3e\u3csub\u3es,t\u3c/sub\u3e\u3c/em\u3e-minors in Graphs with Given Average Degree

Let D(H) be the minimum d such that every graph G with average degree d has an H-minor. Myers and Thomason found good bounds on D(H) for almost all graphs H and proved that for \u27balanced\u27 H random graphs provide extremal examples and determine the extremal function. Examples of \u27unbalanced graphs\u27 are complete bipartite graphs Ks,t for a fixed s and large t. Myers proved upper bounds on D(Ks,t ) and made a conjecture on the order of magnitude of D(Ks,t ) for a fixed s and t → ∞. He also found exact values for D(K2,t) for an infinite series of t. In this paper, we confirm the conjecture of Myers and find asymptotically (in s) exact bounds on D(Ks,t ) for a fixed s and large t

Maximum spread of K2,tK_{2,t}-minor-free graphs

The spread of a graph $G$ is the difference between the largest and smallest eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix of $G$. In this paper, we consider the family of graphs which contain no $K_{2,t}$-minor. We show that for any $t\geq 2$, there is an integer $\xi_t$ such that the maximum spread of an $n$-vertex $K_{2,t}$-minor-free graph is achieved by the graph obtained by joining a vertex to the disjoint union of $\lfloor \frac{2n+\xi_t}{3t}\rfloor$ copies of $K_t$ and $n-1 - t\lfloor \frac{2n+\xi_t}{3t}\rfloor$ isolated vertices. The extremal graph is unique, except when $t\equiv 4 \mod 12$ and $\frac{2n+ \xi_t} {3t}$ is an integer, in which case the other extremal graph is the graph obtained by joining a vertex to the disjoint union of $\lfloor \frac{2n+\xi_t}{3t}\rfloor-1$ copies of $K_t$ and $n-1-t(\lfloor \frac{2n+\xi_t}{3t}\rfloor-1)$ isolated vertices. Furthermore, we give an explicit formula for $\xi_t$.Comment: 15 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2209.1377

Subdivisions in a bipartite graph

Given a bipartite graph G with m and n vertices, respectively,in its vertices classes, and given two integers s, t such that 2 ≤ s ≤ t, 0 ≤ m−s ≤ n−t, and m+n ≤ 2s+t−1, we prove that if G has at least mn−(2(m−s)+n−t) edges then it contains a subdivision of the complete bipartite $K_(s,t)$ with s vertices in the m-class and t vertices in the n-class. Furthermore, we characterize the corresponding extremal bipartite graphs with mn − (2(m − s) + n − t + 1) edges for this topological Turan type problem.Peer Reviewe

On the choosability of HH-minor-free graphs

Given a graph $H$, let us denote by $f_\chi(H)$ and $f_\ell(H)$, respectively, the maximum chromatic number and the maximum list chromatic number of $H$-minor-free graphs. Hadwiger's famous coloring conjecture from 1943 states that $f_\chi(K_t)=t-1$ for every $t \ge 2$. In contrast, for list coloring it is known that $2t-o(t) \le f_\ell(K_t) \le O(t (\log \log t)^6)$ and thus, $f_\ell(K_t)$ is bounded away from the conjectured value $t-1$ for $f_\chi(K_t)$ by at least a constant factor. The so-called $H$-Hadwiger's conjecture, proposed by Seymour, asks to prove that $f_\chi(H)=\textsf{v}(H)-1$ for a given graph $H$ (which would be implied by Hadwiger's conjecture). In this paper, we prove several new lower bounds on $f_\ell(H)$, thus exploring the limits of a list coloring extension of $H$-Hadwiger's conjecture. Our main results are: For every $\varepsilon>0$ and all sufficiently large graphs $H$ we have $f_\ell(H)\ge (1-\varepsilon)(\textsf{v}(H)+\kappa(H))$, where $\kappa(H)$ denotes the vertex-connectivity of $H$. For every $\varepsilon>0$ there exists $C=C(\varepsilon)>0$ such that asymptotically almost every $n$-vertex graph $H$ with $\left\lceil C n\log n\right\rceil$ edges satisfies $f_\ell(H)\ge (2-\varepsilon)n$. The first result generalizes recent results on complete and complete bipartite graphs and shows that the list chromatic number of $H$-minor-free graphs is separated from the natural lower bound $(\textsf{v}(H)-1)$ by a constant factor for all large graphs $H$ of linear connectivity. The second result tells us that even when $H$ is a very sparse graph (with an average degree just logarithmic in its order), $f_\ell(H)$ can still be separated from $(\textsf{v}(H)-1)$ by a constant factor arbitrarily close to $2$. Conceptually these results indicate that the graphs $H$ for which $f_\ell(H)$ is close to $(\textsf{v}(H)-1)$ are typically rather sparse.Comment: 14 page

Dense graphs have K3,t minors

AbstractLet K3,t∗ denote the graph obtained from K3,t by adding all edges between the three vertices of degree t in it. We prove that for each t≥6300 and n≥t+3, each n-vertex graph G with e(G)>12(t+3)(n−2)+1 has a K3,t∗-minor. The bound is sharp in the sense that for every t, there are infinitely many graphs G with e(G)=12(t+3)(|V(G)|−2)+1 that have no K3,t-minor. The result confirms a partial case of the conjecture by Woodall and Seymour that every (s+t)-chromatic graph has a Ks,t-minor