English

Average degree conditions forcing a minor

Combinatorics 2017-07-18 v1

Abstract

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 HH 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 HH-minor when HH 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 HH is an unbalanced complete bipartite graph.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1506.01775,
  title  = {Average degree conditions forcing a minor},
  author = {Daniel J. Harvey and David R. Wood},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1506.01775},
  year   = {2017}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T09:47:40.848Z