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)

Polynomial treewidth forces a large grid-like-minor

Robertson and Seymour proved that every graph with sufficiently large treewidth contains a large grid minor. However, the best known bound on the treewidth that forces an $\ell\times\ell$ grid minor is exponential in $\ell$. It is unknown whether polynomial treewidth suffices. We prove a result in this direction. A \emph{grid-like-minor of order} $\ell$ in a graph $G$ is a set of paths in $G$ whose intersection graph is bipartite and contains a $K_{\ell}$-minor. For example, the rows and columns of the $\ell\times\ell$ grid are a grid-like-minor of order $\ell+1$. We prove that polynomial treewidth forces a large grid-like-minor. In particular, every graph with treewidth at least $c\ell^4\sqrt{\log\ell}$ has a grid-like-minor of order $\ell$. As an application of this result, we prove that the cartesian product $G\square K_2$ contains a $K_{\ell}$-minor whenever $G$ has treewidth at least $c\ell^4\sqrt{\log\ell}$.Comment: v2: The bound in the main result has been improved by using the Lovasz Local Lemma. v3: minor improvements, v4: final section rewritte

A Variant of the Erd\H{o}s-S\'os Conjecture

A well-known conjecture of Erd\H{o}s and S\'os states that every graph with average degree exceeding $m-1$ contains every tree with $m$ edges as a subgraph. We propose a variant of this conjecture, which states that every graph of maximum degree exceeding $m$ and minimum degree at least $\lfloor \frac{2m}{3}\rfloor$ contains every tree with $m$ edges. As evidence for our conjecture we show (i) for every $m$ there is a $g(m)$ such that the weakening of the conjecture obtained by replacing $m$ by $g(m)$ holds, and (ii) there is a $\gamma>0$ such that the weakening of the conjecture obtained by replacing $\lfloor \frac{2m}{3}\rfloor$ by $(1-\gamma)m$ holds

A linear-time algorithm for finding a complete graph minor in a dense graph

Let g(t) be the minimum number such that every graph G with average degree d(G) \geq g(t) contains a K_{t}-minor. Such a function is known to exist, as originally shown by Mader. Kostochka and Thomason independently proved that g(t) \in \Theta(t*sqrt{log t}). This article shows that for all fixed \epsilon > 0 and fixed sufficiently large t \geq t(\epsilon), if d(G) \geq (2+\epsilon)g(t) then we can find this K_{t}-minor in linear time. This improves a previous result by Reed and Wood who gave a linear-time algorithm when d(G) \geq 2^{t-2}.Comment: 6 pages, 0 figures; Clarification added in several places, no change to arguments or result

Fast separation in a graph with an excluded minor

Let $G$ be an $n$-vertex $m$-edge graph with weighted vertices. A pair of vertex sets $A,B \subseteq V(G)$ is a $\frac{2}{3} - \textit{separation}$ of $\textit{order}$ $|A \cap B|$ if $A \cup B = V(G)$, there is no edge between $A \backslash B$ and $B \backslash A$, and both $A \backslash B$ and $B \backslash A$ have weight at most $\frac{2}{3}$ the total weight of $G$. Let $\ell \in \mathbb{Z}^+$ be fixed. Alon, Seymour and Thomas [$\textit{J. Amer. Math. Soc.}$ 1990] presented an algorithm that in $\mathcal{O}(n^{1/2}m)$ time, either outputs a $K_\ell$-minor of $G$, or a separation of $G$ of order $\mathcal{O}(n^{1/2})$. Whether there is a $\mathcal{O}(n+m)$ time algorithm for this theorem was left as open problem. In this paper, we obtain a $\mathcal{O}(n+m)$ time algorithm at the expense of $\mathcal{O}(n^{2/3})$ separator. Moreover, our algorithm exhibits a tradeoff between running time and the order of the separator. In particular, for any given $\epsilon \in [0,\frac{1}{2}]$, our algorithm either outputs a $K_\ell$-minor of $G$, or a separation of $G$ with order $\mathcal{O}(n^{(2-\epsilon )/3})$ in $\mathcal{O}(n^{1+\epsilon} +m)$ time

An upper bound for the chromatic number of line graphs

It was conjectured by Reed [reed98conjecture] that for any graph $G$, the graph's chromatic number $χ (G)$ is bounded above by $\lceil Δ (G) +1 + ω (G) / 2\rceil$ , where $Δ (G)$ and $ω (G)$ are the maximum degree and clique number of $G$, respectively. In this paper we prove that this bound holds if $G$ is the line graph of a multigraph. The proof yields a polynomial time algorithm that takes a line graph $G$ and produces a colouring that achieves our bound