Disjoint unions of complete minors

Given integers r and s, and n large compared to r and s, we determine the maximum size of a graph of order n having no minor isomorphic to sK_r, the union of s disjoint copies of K_r.The extremal function depends on the relative sizes of r and s. If s is small compared to r the extremal function is essentially independent of s. On the other hand, if s is large compared to r, there is a unique extremal graph ; this assertion is a generalization of the case r=3 which is a classical result of Erd?s and Pósa.     

Graph minors. I. Excluding a forest

The path-width of a graph is the minimum value ofk such that the graph can be obtained from a sequence of graphsG₁,…,G_r each of which has at mostk + 1 vertices, by identifying some vertices ofG_i pairwise with some ofG_i+1 (1 ≤ i < r). For every forestH it is proved that there is a numberk such that every graph with no minor isomorphic toH has path-width?k. This, together with results of other papers, yields a “good” algorithm to test for the presence of any fixed forest as a minor, and implies that ifP is any property of graphs such that some forest does not have propertyP, then the set of minor-minimal graphs without propertyP is finite.     

Disjoint paths in a rectilinear grid

We give a good characterization and a good algorithm for a special case of the integral multicommodity flow problem when the graph is defined by a rectangle on a rectilinear grid. The problem was raised by engineers motivated by some basic questions of constructing printed circuit boards.     

Disjoint paths in tournaments

Given k   pairs of vertices (_si,_ti)$(s_i,t_i)$(1≤i≤k)$(1\le i\le k)$ of a digraph G, how can we test whether there exist k   vertex-disjoint directed paths from _si$s_i$ to _ti$t_i$ for 1≤i≤k$1\le i\le k$? This is NP-complete in general digraphs, even for k=2$k=2$ [2], but for k=2$k=2$ there is a polynomial-time algorithm when G is a tournament (or more generally, a semicomplete digraph), due to Bang-Jensen and Thomassen [1]. Here we prove that for all fixed k there is a polynomial-time algorithm to solve the problem when G is semicomplete.     

Graph minors. III. Planar tree-width

The “tree-width” of a graph is defined and it is proved that for any fixed planar graph H, every planar graph with sufficiently large tree-width has a minor isomorphic to H. This result has several applications which are described in other papers in this series.     

Disjoint paths in sparse graphs

We generalize all the results obtained for maximum integer multiflow and minimum multicut problems in trees by Garg, Vazirani and Yannakakis [N. Garg, V.V. Vazirani, M. Yannakakis, Primal-dual approximation algorithms for integral flow and multicut in trees, Algorithmica 18 (1997) 3–20] to graphs with a fixed cyclomatic number, while this cannot be achieved for other classical generalizations of trees. We also introduce thek-edge-outerplanar graphs, a class of planar graphs with arbitrary (but bounded) tree-width that generalizes the cacti, and show that the integrality gap of the maximum edge-disjoint paths problem is bounded in these graphs.     

Disjoint paths in symmetric digraphs

Given a number of requests ?, we propose a polynomial-time algorithm for finding ? disjoint paths in a symmetric directed graph. It is known that the problem of finding ?≥2 disjoint paths in a directed graph is NP-hard [S. Fortune, J. Hopcroft, J. Wyllie, The directed subgraph homeomorphism problem, Journal of Theoretical Computer Science 10 (2) (1980) 111-121]. However, by studying minimal solutions it turns out that only a finite number of configurations are possible in a symmetric digraph. We use Robertson and Seymour’s polynomial-time algorithm [N. Robertson, P. D. Seymour, Graph minors xiii. The disjoint paths problem, Journal of Combinatorial Theory B (63) (1995) 65-110] to check the feasibility of each configuration.     

Disjoint shortest paths in graphs

It is an interesting problem that how much connectivity ensures the existence ofn disjoint paths joining givenn pairs of vertices, but to get a sharp bound seems to be very difficult. In this paper, we study how muchgeodetic connectivity ensures the existence ofn disjointgeodesics joining givenn pairs of vertices, where a graph is calledk-geodetically connected if the removal of anyk−1 vertices does not change the distance between any remaining vertices.     

Graph minors and linkages

Bollobás and Thomason showed that every 22k‐connected graph is k‐linked. Their result used a dense graph minor. In this paper, we investigate the ties between small graph minors and linkages. In particular, we show that a 6‐connected graph with a K minor is 3‐linked. Further, we show that a 7‐connected graph with a K minor is (2,5)‐linked. Finally, we show that a graph of order n and size at least 7n?29 contains a K minor. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 49: 75–91, 2005     

Disjoint homotopic paths and trees in a planar graph

In this paper we describe a polynomial-time algorithm for the following problem:given: a planar graphG embedded in ℝ², a subset {I ₁, …,I _p} of the faces ofG, and pathsC ₁, …,C _k inG, with endpoints on the boundary ofI ₁ ∪ … ∪I _p; find: pairwise disjoint simple pathsP ₁, …,P _k inG so that, for eachi=1, …,k, P _i is homotopic toC _i in the space ℝ²\(I ₁ ∪ … ∪I _p). Moreover, we prove a theorem characterizing the existence of a solution to this problem. Finally, we extend the algorithm to disjoint homotopic trees. As a corollary we derive that, for each fixedp, there exists a polynormial-time algorithm for the problem:given: a planar graphG embedded in ℝ² and pairwise disjoint setsW ₁, …,W _k of vertices, which can be covered by the boundaries of at mostp faces ofG;find: pairwise vertex-disjoint subtreesT ₁, …,T _k ofG whereT _i (i=1, …, k).     

Graph minors. II. Algorithmic aspects of tree-width

We introduce an invariant of graphs called the tree-width, and use it to obtain a polynomially bounded algorithm to test if a graph has a subgraph contractible to H, where H is any fixed planar graph. We also nonconstructively prove the existence of a polynomial algorithm to test if a graph has tree-width ≤ w, for fixed w. Neither of these is a practical algorithm, as the exponents of the polynomials are large. Both algorithms are derived from a polynomial algorithm for the DISJOINT CONNECTING PATHS problem (with the number of paths fixed), for graphs of bounded tree-width.     

On the Existence of Disjoint Cycles in a Graph

G is a graph of order at least 3k with . Then G contains k vertex-disjoint cycles. Received: April 23, 1998     

Disjoint edge paths between given vertices of a convex polytope

A Gale diagram technique is used to show that if d is positive integer greater than one, then there is a d-polytope P such that there are [$\text{2(d + 4)}\text{5}$] pairs of distinct vertices of P which cannot all be joined by disjoint paths in the graph of P.     

Disjoint paths, planarizing cycles, and spanning walks

We study the existence of certain disjoint paths in planar graphs and generalize a theorem of Thomassen on planarizing cycles in surfaces. Results are used to prove that every 5-connected triangulation of a surface with sufficiently large representativity is hamiltonian, thus verifying a conjecture of Thomassen. We also obtain results about spanning walks in graphs embedded in a surface with large representativity.

     

Graph minors and the crossing number of graphs

There are three general lower bound techniques for the crossing numbers of graphs, all of which can be traced back to Leighton's work on applications of crossing number in VLSI: the Crossing Lemma, the Bisection Method, and the Embedding Method. In this contribution, we sketch their adaptations to the minor crossing number.     

Distance-regular Subgraphs in a Distance-regular Graph, VI

In this paper we give a sufficient condition for the existence of a strongly closed subgraph which is (c_q+a_q)-regular of diameterqcontaining a given pair of vertices at distanceqin a distance-regular graph. Moreover we show that a distance-regular graph withr = max {j| (c_j,a_j,b_j) = (c₁,a₁,b₁)} ,b_{q − 1}>b_qandc_q+r = 1 satisfies our sufficient condition.     

On Partitioning the Edge Set of a Graph into Internally Disjoint Paths without Exterior Vertices

A collection of nontrivial paths in a graph G is called a path pile of G, if every edge of G is on exactly one path and no two paths have a common internal vertex. The least number that can be the cardinality of a path pile of G is called the path piling number of G. It can be shown that ε ≤ ν + η where ε, ν and η are respectively the size, the order and the path piling number of G. In this note we characterize structurally the class of all graphs for which the equality of this relation holds.