English

Planar Tur\'an number of quasi-double stars

Combinatorics 2025-07-17 v1

Abstract

Given a graph H, we call a graph H-free\textit{H-free} if it does not contain H as a subgraph. The planar Tur\'an number of a graph H, denoted by exP(n,H)ex_{\mathcal{P}}(n, H), is the maximum number of edges in a planar H-free graph on n vertices. A (h,k)-quasi-double star Wh,kW_{h,k}, obtained from a path P3=v1v2v3P_3=v_1v_2v_3 by adding h leaves and k leaves to the vertices v1v_1 and v3v_3, respectively, is a subclass of caterpillars. In this paper, we study exP(n,Wh,k)ex_{\mathcal{P}}(n,W_{h,k}) for all 1h2k51\le h\le 2\le k\le 5, and obtain some tight bounds exP(n,Wh,k)3(h+k)h+k+2nex_{\mathcal{P}}(n,W_{h,k})\leq\frac{3(h+k)}{h+k+2}n for 3h+k53\le h+k\le 5 with equality holds if (h+k+2)n(h+k+2)\mid n, and exP(n,W1,5)52nex_{\mathcal{P}}(n,W_{1,5})\le \frac{5}{2}n with equality holds if 12n12\mid n. Also we show that 94nexP(n,W2,4)52n\frac{9}{4}n\le ex_{\mathcal{P}}(n,W_{2,4})\le \frac{5}{2}n and 52nexP(n,W2,5)176n\frac{5}{2}n\le ex_{\mathcal{P}}(n,W_{2,5})\le \frac{17}{6}n, respectively.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2507.11860,
  title  = {Planar Tur\'an number of quasi-double stars},
  author = {Huiqing Liu and Tian Xie and Qin Zhao},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.11860},
  year   = {2025}
}