Improved square coloring of planar graphs

Square coloring is a variant of graph coloring where vertices within distance two must receive different colors. When considering planar graphs, the most famous conjecture (Wegner, 1977) states that $\frac{3}{2}\mathrm{\Delta }+1$ colors are sufficient to square color every planar graph of maximum degree Δ. This conjecture has been proven asymptotically for graphs with large maximum degree. We consider here planar graphs with small maximum degree and show that $2\mathrm{\Delta }+7$ colors are sufficient, which improves the best known bounds when $6?\mathrm{\Delta }?31$.     

On the Maximum Number of Edges in Topological Graphs with no Four Pairwise Crossing Edges

A topological graph is called k -quasi-planar if it does not contain k pairwise crossing edges. It is conjectured that for every fixed k, the maximum number of edges in a k-quasi-planar graph on n vertices is O(n). We provide an affirmative answer to the case k=4.     

Reducing an arbitrary fullerene to the dodecahedron

Viewing fullerenes as plane graphs with facial cycles being pentagonal and hexagonal only, it is shown how to reduce an arbitrary fullerene to the (graph of the) dodecahedron. This can be achieved by a sequence of eight reduction steps, seven of which are local operations and the remaining reduction step acts globally. In any case, the resulting algorithm has polynomial running time.     

Boxicity of Halin graphs

A k-dimensional box is the Cartesian product R₁×R₂×?×R_k where each R_i is a closed interval on the real line. The boxicity of a graph G, denoted as is the minimum integer k such that G is the intersection graph of a collection of k-dimensional boxes. Halin graphs are the graphs formed by taking a tree with no degree 2 vertex and then connecting its leaves to form a cycle in such a way that the graph has a planar embedding. We prove that if G is a Halin graph that is not isomorphic to K₄, then . In fact, we prove the stronger result that if G is a planar graph formed by connecting the leaves of any tree in a simple cycle, then unless G is isomorphic to K₄ (in which case its boxicity is 1).     

Smaller planar triangle-free graphs that are not 3-list-colorable

In 1995, Voigt constructed a planar triangle-free graph that is not 3-list-colorable. It has 166 vertices. Gutner then constructed such a graph with 164 vertices. We present two more graphs with these properties. The first graph has 97 vertices and a failing list assignment using triples from a set of six colors, while the second has 109 vertices and a failing list assignment using triples from a set of five colors.     

Completely connected clustered graphs

Planar drawings of clustered graphs are considered. We introduce the notion of completely connected clustered graphs, i.e., hierarchically clustered graphs that have the property that not only every cluster but also each complement of a cluster induces a connected subgraph. As a main result, we prove that a completely connected clustered graph is c-planar if and only if the underlying graph is planar. Further, we investigate the influence of the root of the inclusion tree to the choice of the outer face of the underlying graph and vice versa.     

Remarks on the bondage number of planar graphs

The bondage number b(G) of a nonempty graph G is the cardinality of a smallest set of edges whose removal from G results in a graph with domination number greater than the domination number γ(G) of G. In 1998, J.E. Dunbar, T.W. Haynes, U. Teschner, and L. Volkmann posed the conjecture b(G)Δ(G)+1 for every nontrivial connected planar graph G. Two years later, L. Kang and J. Yuan proved b(G)8 for every connected planar graph G, and therefore, they confirmed the conjecture for Δ(G)7. In this paper we show that this conjecture is valid for all connected planar graphs of girth g(G)4 and maximum degree Δ(G)5 as well as for all not 3-regular graphs of girth g(G)5. Some further related results and open problems are also presented.     

On the two-connected planar spanning subgraph polytope

The problem of finding a two-connected planar spanning subgraph of maximum weight in a complete edge-weighted graph is important in automatic graph drawing. We investigate the problem from a polyhedral point of view.