On the crossing numbers of Cartesian products with trees

Zip product was recently used in a note establishing the crossing number of the Cartesian product K₁,n □ P_m. In this article, we further investigate the relations of this graph operation with the crossing numbers of graphs. First, we use a refining of the embedding method bound for crossing numbers to weaken the connectivity condition under which the crossing number is additive for the zip product. Next, we deduce a general theorem for bounding the crossing numbers of (capped) Cartesian product of graphs with trees, which yields exact results under certain symmetry conditions. We apply this theorem to obtain exact and approximate results on crossing numbers of Cartesian product of various graphs with trees. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 56: 287–300, 2007