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Related papers: Further progress towards Hadwiger's conjecture

200 papers

Motivated by Hadwiger's conjecture, we study the problem of finding the densest possible $t$-vertex minor in graphs of average degree at least $t-1$. We show that if $G$ has average degree at least $t-1$, it contains a minor on $t$ vertices…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-10-29 Kevin Hendrey , Sergey Norin , Raphael Steiner , Jérémie Turcotte

We prove that for any circle graph $H$ with at least one edge and for any positive integer $k$, there exists an integer $t=t(k,H)$ so that every graph $G$ either has a vertex-minor isomorphic to the disjoint union of $k$ copies of $H$, or…

A widely open conjecture proposed by Bollob\'as, Erd\H{o}s, and Tuza in the early 1990s states that for any $n$-vertex graph $G$, if the independence number $\alpha(G) = \Omega(n)$, then there is a subset $T \subseteq V(G)$ with $|T| =…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-07-25 Xinbu Cheng , Zixiang Xu

In 2001, Woodall conjectured that for every pair of integers $s,t \ge 1$, all graphs without a $K_{s,t}$-minor are $(s+t-1)$-choosable. In this note we refute this conjecture in a strong form: We prove that for every choice of constants…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-01-25 Raphael Steiner

A graph G is k-critical if every proper subgraph of G is (k-1)-colorable, but the graph G itself is not. We prove that every k-critical graph on n vertices has a cycle of length at least log n/(100log k), improving a bound of Alon,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2011-04-14 Asaf Shapira , Robin Thomas

A drawing of a graph on a surface is independently even if every pair of nonadjacent edges in the drawing crosses an even number of times. The $\mathbb{Z}_2$-genus of a graph $G$ is the minimum $g$ such that $G$ has an independently even…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-10-03 Radoslav Fulek , Jan Kynčl

We investigate some coloring properties of Kneser graphs. A star-free coloring is a proper coloring $c:V(G)\to \Bbb{N}$ such that no path with three vertices may be colored with just two consecutive numbers. The minimum positive integer $t$…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2010-01-06 Hossein Hajiabolhassan

Let $G$ be a graph with a vertex colouring $\alpha$. Let $a$ and $b$ be two colours. Then a connected component of the subgraph induced by those vertices coloured either $a$ or $b$ is known as a Kempe chain. A colouring of $G$ obtained from…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2016-09-23 Marthe Bonamy , Nicolas Bousquet , Carl Feghali , Matthew Johnson

The classical Andr\'{a}sfai-Erd\H{o}s-S\'{o}s theorem considers the chromatic number of $K_{r + 1}$-free graphs with large minimum degree, and in the case $r = 2$ says that any $n$-vertex triangle-free graph with minimum degree greater than…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-08-22 Freddie Illingworth

Let $K_p$ be a complete graph of order $p\geq 2$. A $K_p$-free $k$-coloring of a graph $H$ is a partition of $V(H)$ into $V_1, V_2\ldots,V_k$ such that $H[V_i]$ does not contain $K_p$ for each $i\leq k $. In 1977 Borodin and Kostochka…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-07-27 Yaser Rowshan , Ali Taherkhani

Properly colored cycles in edge-colored graphs are closely related to directed cycles in oriented graphs. As an analogy of the well-known Caccetta-H\"{a}ggkvist Conjecture, we study the existence of properly colored cycles of bounded length…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-08-25 Laihao Ding , Jie Hu , Guanghui Wang , Donglei Yang

Recently, Kostochka and Yancey proved that a conjecture of Ore is asymptotically true by showing that every $k$-critical graph satisfies $|E(G)|\geq\left\lceil\left(\frac{k}{2}-\frac{1}{k-1}\right)|V(G)|-\frac{k(k-3)}{2(k-1)}\right\rceil.$…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-07-05 Ron Gould , Victor Larsen , Luke Postle

We prove that for any graph $G$, the total chromatic number of $G$ is at most $\Delta(G)+2\left\lceil \frac{|V(G)|}{\Delta(G)+1} \right\rceil$. This saves one color in comparison with a result of Hind from 1992. In particular, our result…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-05-14 Aseem Dalal , Jessica McDonald , Songling Shan

Given an integer $r\gs 2$, an important theorem first proved by B. Andr\'asfai, P. Erd\H{o}s, and V. T. S\'os states that any $K_{r+1}$--free graph on $n$ vertices whose minimum degree is greater than $(3r-4)n/(3r-1)$ is $r$--colourable,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2016-03-22 Christian Reiher

Contraction-critical graphs came from the study of minimal counterexamples to Hadwiger's conjecture. A graph is $k$-contraction-critical if it is $k$-chromatic, but any proper minor is $(k-1)$-colorable. It is a long-standing result of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-09-10 Michael Lafferty , Runrun Liu , Martin Rolek , Gexin Yu

The classic upper bound on the chromatic number of $d$-degenerate graphs is $d+1$, shown to be tight by complete graphs. A natural question is whether this bound remains tight if one forbids large cliques. Classic constructions of Tutte and…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-01-22 Domagoj Bradač , Jacob Fox , Raphael Steiner , Benny Sudakov , Shengtong Zhang

A vertex-coloring of a hypergraph is conflict-free, if each edge contains a vertex whose color is not repeated on any other vertex of that edge. Let $f(r, \Delta)$ be the smallest integer $k$ such that each $r$-uniform hypergraph of maximum…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2016-12-06 Maria Axenovich , Jonathan Rollin

Let $c_1, c_2, \cdots, c_k$ be $k$ non-negative integers. A graph $G$ is $(c_1, c_2, \cdots, c_k)$-colorable if the vertex set can be partitioned into $k$ sets $V_1,V_2, \ldots, V_k$, such that the subgraph $G[V_i]$, induced by $V_i$, has…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2015-09-01 Ziwen Huang , Xiangwen Li , Gexin Yu

Ramsey's Theorem guarantees for every graph H that any 2-edge-coloring of a sufficiently large complete graph contains a monochromatic copy of H. In 1962, Erdos conjectured that the random 2-edge-coloring minimizes the number of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-08-22 Daniel Kral , Jan Volec , Fan Wei

Kostochka and Yancey resolved a famous conjecture of Ore on the asymptotic density of $k$-critical graphs by proving that every $k$-critical graph $G$ satisfies $|E(G)| \geq (\frac{k}{2} - \frac{1}{k-1})|V(G)| - \frac{k(k-3)}{2(k-1)}$. The…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2018-11-08 Wenbo Gao , Luke Postle