English

Every graph with no $\mathcal{K}_8^{-4}$ minor is $7$-colorable

Combinatorics 2022-08-23 v2

Abstract

Hadwiger's Conjecture from 1943 states that every graph with no KtK_{t} minor is (t1)(t-1)-colorable; it remains wide open for all t7t\ge 7. For positive integers tt and ss, let Kts\mathcal{K}_t^{-s} denote the family of graphs obtained from the complete graph KtK_t by removing ss edges. We say that a graph GG has no Kts\mathcal{K}_t^{-s} minor if it has no HH minor for every HKtsH\in \mathcal{K}_t^{-s}. Jakobsen in 1971 proved that every graph with no K72\mathcal{K}_7^{-2} minor is 66-colorable. In this paper we consider the next step and prove that every graph with no K84\mathcal{K}_8^{-4} minor is 77-colorable. Our result implies that HH-Hadwiger's Conjecture, suggested by Paul Seymour in 2017, is true for every graph HH on eight vertices such that the complement of HH has maximum degree at least four, a perfect matching, a triangle and a cycle of length four. Our proof utilizes an extremal function for K84\mathcal{K}_8^{-4} minors obtained in this paper, generalized Kempe chains of contraction-critical graphs by Rolek and the second author, and the method for finding K7K_7 minors from three different K5K_5 subgraphs by Kawarabayashi and Toft; this method was first developed by Robertson, Seymour and Thomas in 1993 to prove Hadwiger's Conjecture for t=6t=6.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2208.07338,
  title  = {Every graph with no $\mathcal{K}_8^{-4}$ minor is $7$-colorable},
  author = {Michael Lafferty and Zi-Xia Song},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2208.07338},
  year   = {2022}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-25T01:43:15.651Z