Related papers: Solution to a problem of Gr\"unbaum on the edge de…

A graph $G=(V,E)$ is a $k$-critical graph if $G$ is not $(k -1)$-colorable but $G-e$ is $(k-1)$-colorable for every $e\in E(G)$. In this paper, we construct a family of 4-critical planar graphs with $n$ vertices and $\frac{7n-13}{3}$ edges.…

We prove that every triangle-free $4$-critical graph $G$ satisfies $e(G) \geq \frac{5v(G)+2}{3}$. This result gives a unified proof that triangle-free planar graphs are $3$-colourable, and that graphs of girth at least five which embed in…

We investigate the number of 4-edge paths in graphs with a fixed number of vertices and edges. An asymptotically sharp upper bound is given to this quantity. The extremal construction is the quasi-star or the quasi-clique graph, depending…

We prove that if G is a 4-critical graph of girth at least five then |E(G)|>=(5|V(G)|+2)/3. As a corollary, graphs of girth at least five embeddable in the Klein bottle or torus are 3-colorable. These are results of Thomas and Walls, and…

A graph $G$ is {$k$-crossing-critical} if $cr(G)\ge k$, but $cr(G\setminus e)<k$ for each edge $e\in E(G)$, where $cr(G)$ is the crossing number of $G$. It is known that for any $k$-crossing-critical graph $G$, $cr(G)\le 2.5k+16$ holds, and…

By the Grunbaum-Aksenov Theorem (extending Grotzsch's Theorem) every planar graph with at most three triangles is 3-colorable. However, there are infinitely many planar 4-critical graphs with exactly four triangles. We describe all such…

A graph $G$ is \emph{uniquely k-colorable} if the chromatic number of $G$ is $k$ and $G$ has only one $k$-coloring up to permutation of the colors. A uniquely $k$-colorable graph $G$ is edge-critical if $G-e$ is not a uniquely $k$-colorable…

Let $H$ be a graph on $n$ vertices and let the blow-up graph $G[H]$ be defined as follows. We replace each vertex $v_i$ of $H$ by a cluster $A_i$ and connect some pairs of vertices of $A_i$ and $A_j$ if $(v_i,v_j)$ was an edge of the graph…

We show that if G is a 4-critical graph embedded in a fixed surface $\Sigma$ so that every contractible cycle has length at least 5, then G can be expressed as $G=G'\cup G_1\cup G_2\cup ... \cup G_k$, where $|V(G')|$ and $k$ are bounded by…

We investigate the extremal properties of saturated partial plane embeddings of maximal planar graphs. For a planar graph $G$, the plane-saturation number $\mathrm{sat}_{\mathcal{P}}(G)$ denotes the minimum number of edges in a plane…

A graph G is 5/2-critical if G has no circular 5/2-coloring (or equivalently, homomorphism to C_5), but every proper subgraph of G has one. We prove that every 5/2-critical graph on n>=4 vertices has at least (5n-2)/4 edges, and list all…

Let $G$ be a bipartite graph without loops and multiple edges on $v\ge 4$ vertices, which can be drawn on the plane such that any edge intersects at most one other edge. We prove that such graph has at most $3v-8$ edges for even $v\ne 6$…

For a family $\mathcal{F}$ of graphs, let $ex(n,\mathcal{F})$ denote the maximum number of edges in an $n$-vertex graph which contains none of the members of $\mathcal{F}$ as a subgraph. A longstanding problem in extremal graph theory asks…

A signed bipartite (simple) graph $(G, \sigma)$ is said to be $C_{-4}$-critical if it admits no homomorphism to $C_{-4}$ (a negative 4-cycle) but every proper subgraph of it does. In this work, first of all we show that the notion of…

Let $c$ be a proper edge colouring of a graph $G=(V,E)$ with integers $1,2,\ldots,k$. Then $k\geq \Delta(G)$, while by Vizing's theorem, no more than $k=\Delta(G)+1$ is necessary for constructing such $c$. On the course of investigating…

In this paper we introduce and study the strip planarity testing problem, which takes as an input a planar graph $G(V,E)$ and a function $\gamma:V \rightarrow \{1,2,\dots,k\}$ and asks whether a planar drawing of $G$ exists such that each…

Appearing in different format, Gupta\,(1967), Goldberg\,(1973), Andersen\,(1977), and Seymour\,(1979) conjectured that if $G$ is an edge-$k$-critical graph with $k \ge \Delta +1$, then $|V(G)|$ is odd and, for every edge $e$, $E(G-e)$ is a…

Kostochka and Yancey proved that every 5-critical graph G satisfies: |E(G)|>= (9/4)|V(G)| - 5/4. A construction of Ore gives an infinite family of graphs meeting this bound. We prove that there exists e,d > 0 such that if G is a 5-critical…

We study squares of planar graphs with the aim to determine their list chromatic number. We present new upper bounds for the square of a planar graph with maximum degree $\Delta \leq 4$. In particular $G^2$ is 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-, 12-,…

The famous Wegner's Planar Graph Conjecture asserts tight upper bounds on the chromatic number of the square $G^2$ of a planar graph $G$, depending on the maximum degree $\Delta(G)$ of $G$. The only case that the conjecture is resolved is…