English

Small counterexamples to the fat minor conjecture

Combinatorics 2026-01-12 v1 Metric Geometry

Abstract

We narrow the gap between the family of graphs that do and the family of graphs that do not satisfy the fat minor conjecture by obtaining much simpler counterexamples than were previously known, including Kt,t6K_t, t \geq 6 and Ks,t,s,t4K_{s,t}, s,t \geq 4 and K2,2,2K_{2,2,2}. This is achieved by establishing a `coarse self-similarity' property of the graphs used by Nguyen, Scott and Seymour to disprove the `coarse Menger conjecture'. This property may be of independent interest.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.05761,
  title  = {Small counterexamples to the fat minor conjecture},
  author = {Sandra Albrechtsen and Marc Distel and Agelos Georgakopoulos},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.05761},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T08:57:42.412Z