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Related papers: Further progress towards Hadwiger's conjecture

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The celebrated Hadwiger's conjecture states that if a graph contains no $K_{t+1}$ minor then it is $t$-colourable. If true, it would in particular imply that every $n$-vertex $K_{t+1}$-minor-free graph has an independent set of size at…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-07-31 Zdeněk Dvořák , Liana Yepremyan

Hadwiger's conjecture from 1943 states that for every integer $t\ge1$, every graph either can be $t$-colored or has a subgraph that can be contracted to the complete graph on $t+1$ vertices. As pointed out by Paul Seymour in his recent…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2016-12-22 Martin Rolek , Zi-Xia Song

A $\textit{dominating $K_t$-model}$ in a graph $G$ is a sequence $(T_1,\dots,T_t)$ of pairwise disjoint non-empty connected subgraphs of $G$, such that for $1 \leqslant i<j \leqslant t$ every vertex in $T_j$ has a neighbour in $T_i$.…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-05-24 Freddie Illingworth , David R. Wood

Hadwiger's Conjecture from 1943 states that every graph with chromatic number $t$ contains a $K_t$ minor. Illingworth and Wood [arXiv:2405.14299] introduced the concept of a ``dominating $K_t$ minor'' and asked whether every graph with…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-11-18 Michael Scully , Zi-Xia Song

It is proved that for every $\varepsilon>0$, there exists $K>0$ such that for every integer $t\ge2$, every graph with chromatic number at least $Kt$ contains a minor with $t$ vertices and edge density at least $1-\varepsilon$. Indeed,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-08-09 Tung H. Nguyen

We prove that there exist graphs which do not contain $K_t$ as an odd minor and whose chromatic number is at least $(\frac 32-o(1))t$. This disproves, in a strong form, the odd Hadwiger conjecture of Gerards and Seymour from 1993.

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-12-24 Marcus Kühn , Lisa Sauermann , Raphael Steiner , Yuval Wigderson

Hadwiger's famous coloring conjecture states that every $t$-chromatic graph contains a $K_t$-minor. Holroyd [Bull. London Math. Soc. 29, (1997), pp. 139--144] conjectured the following strengthening of Hadwiger's conjecture: If $G$ is a…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-09-02 Anders Martinsson , Raphael Steiner

Hadwiger's conjecture says that every $K_t$-minor free graph is $(t - 1)$-colorable. This problem has been proved for $t \leq 6$ but remains open for $t \geq 7$. $K_7$-minor free graphs have been proved to be $8$-colorable (Albar &…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2014-02-13 Boris Albar

Alon, Krivelevich, and Sudakov conjectured in 1999 that every $F$-free graph of maximum degree at most $\Delta$ has chromatic number $O(\Delta / \log \Delta)$. This was previously known only for almost bipartite graphs, that is, for…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-12-05 Abhishek Dhawan , Oliver Janzer , Abhishek Methuku

We investigate Hadwiger's conjecture for graphs with no stable set of size 3. Such a graph on at least 2t-1 vertices is not t-1 colorable, so is conjectured to have a $K_t$ minor. There is a strengthening of Hadwiger's conjecture in this…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2007-05-23 Jonah Blasiak

Consider the following relaxation of the Hadwiger Conjecture: For each $t$ there exists $N_t$ such that every graph with no $K_t$-minor admits a vertex partition into $\ceil{\alpha t+\beta}$ parts, such that each component of the subgraph…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2011-10-05 David R. Wood

A dominating $K_t$ minor in a graph $G$ is a sequence $(T_1,\dots,T_t)$ of pairwise disjoint non-empty connected subgraphs of $G$, such that for $1 \leq i<j\leq t$, every vertex in $T_j$ has a neighbor in $T_i$. Replacing ``every vertex in…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-10-15 Zi-Xia Song , Thomas Tibbetts

For a graph G and an integer t we let mcc_t(G) be the smallest m such that there exists a coloring of the vertices of G by t colors with no monochromatic connected subgraph having more than m vertices. Let F be any nontrivial minor-closed…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2007-05-23 N. Linial , J. Matousek , O. Sheffet , G. Tardos

We study large minors in small-set expanders. More precisely, we consider graphs with $n$ vertices and the property that every set of size at most $\alpha n / t$ expands by a factor of $t$, for some (constant) $\alpha > 0$ and large $t =…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-08-22 Michael Krivelevich , Rajko Nenadov

A connected $t$-chromatic graph $G$ is \dfn{double-critical} if $G \backslash\{u, v\}$ is $(t-2)$-colorable for each edge $uv\in E(G)$. A long standing conjecture of Erd\H{o}s and Lov\'asz that the complete graphs are the only…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2017-10-17 Martin Rolek , Zi-Xia Song

We prove that for any $\varepsilon>0$, for any large enough $t$, there is a graph $G$ that admits no $K_t$-minor but admits a $(\frac32-\varepsilon)t$-colouring that is "frozen" with respect to Kempe changes, i.e. any two colour classes…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-03-14 Marthe Bonamy , Marc Heinrich , Clément Legrand-Duchesne , Jonathan Narboni

The Odd Hadwiger's conjecture, formulated by Gerards and Seymour in 1995, is a substantial strengthening of Hadwiger's famous coloring conjecture from 1943. We investigate whether the hierarchy of topological lower bounds on the chromatic…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-01-03 Raphael Steiner

Mader proved that for every integer $t$ there is a smallest real number $c(t)$ such that any graph with average degree at least $c(t)$ must contain a $K_t$-minor. Fiorini, Joret, Theis and Wood conjectured that any graph with $n$ vertices…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2015-06-12 Richard Montgomery

A conjecture of Alon, Krivelevich, and Sudakov states that, for any graph $F$, there is a constant $c_F > 0$ such that if $G$ is an $F$-free graph of maximum degree $\Delta$, then $\chi(G) \leq c_F \Delta / \log\Delta$. Alon, Krivelevich,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-01-25 James Anderson , Anton Bernshteyn , Abhishek Dhawan

The first non-obvious case of Hadwiger's Conjecture states that every graph $G$ with chromatic number at least 4 has a $K_4$ minor. We give a new proof that derives the $K_4$ minor from a proper 3-coloring of a subgraph of $G$.

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-08-11 Daniel Cooper McDonald