For an arbitrary fixed surface S, a linear time algorithm is presented that for a given graph G either finds an embedding of G in S or identifies a subgraph of G that is homeomorphic to a minimal forbidden subgraph for embeddability in S. A side result of the proof of the algorithm is that minimal forbidden subgraphs for embeddability in S cannot be arbitrarily large. This yields a constructive proof of the result of Robertson and Seymour that for each closed surface there are only finitely many minimal forbidden subgraphs. The results and methods of this paper can be used to solve more general embedding extension problems.

vi Declaration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix List of Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii List of Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv I Orthogonal Graph Drawing 1 1

This chapter gives a general overview of two emerging techniques for discrete optimization that have footholds in mathematics, computer science, and operations research: branch decompositions and tree decompositions. Branch decompositions and tree decompositions along with their respective connectivity invariants, branchwidth and treewidth, were first introduced to aid in proving the Graph Minors Theorem, a wellknown conjecture (Wagner’s conjecture) in graph theory. The algorithmic importance of branch decompositions and tree decompositions for solving NP-hard problems modelled on graphs was first realized by computer scientists in relation to formulating graph problems in monadic second order logic. The dynamic programming techniques utilizing branch decompositions and tree decompositions, called branch decomposition and tree decomposition based algorithms, fall into a class of algorithms known as fixed-parameter tractable algorithms and have been shown to be effective in a practical setting for NP-hard problems such as minimum domination, the travelling salesman problem, general minor containment, and frequency assignment problems.

Abstract not found

Graph minors and the theory of graphs embedded in surfaces are

Graphs of small average genus are characterized. In particular, a Kuratowski-type theorem is obtained: except for finitely many graphs, a cutedge-free graph has average genus less than or equal to 1 if and only if it is a necklace. We provide a complete list of those exceptions. A Kuratowski-type theorem for graphs of maximum genus 1 is also given. Some of the methods used in obtaining these results involve variations of a classical result of Whitney. April 27, 1992 1 Supported by Engineering Excellence Award from Texas A&M University, and by the National Science Foundation under Grant CCR-9110824. 2 Supported by ONR Contract N00014-85-0768. CUCS-019-92 1 Introduction By the average genus of a graph G, we mean the average value of the genus of the imbedding surface, taken over all orientable imbeddings of G. This value is evidently a rational number, and it is clearly an invariant of the homeomorphism type of a graph. The average genus of individual graphs is in the Gross-Furst ...

The lightness of a digraph is the minimum arc value, where the value of an arc is the maximum of the in-degrees of its terminal vertices. We determine upper bounds for the lightness of simple digraphs with minimum in-degree at least 1 (resp., graphs with minimum degree at least 2) and a given girth k, and without 4-cycles, which can be embedded in a surface S. (Graphs are considered as digraphs each arc having a parallel arc of opposite direction.) In case k ≥ 5, these bounds are tight for surfaces of nonnegative Euler characteristics. This generalizes results of He et al. [11] concerning the lightness of planar graphs. From these bounds we obtain directly new bounds for the game coloring number, and thus for the game chromatic number of (di)graphs with girth k and without 4-cycles embeddable in S. The game chromatic resp. game coloring number were introduced by Bodlaender [3] resp. Zhu [22] for graphs. We generalize these notions to arbitrary digraphs. We prove that the game coloring number of a directed simple forest is at most 3.

In this note we prove that two speci c graphs do not have nite planar covers. The graphs are K 7 C 4 and K 4;5 4K 2 . This research is related to Negami's 1-2-1 Conjecture which states \A graph G has a nite planar cover if and only if it embeds in the projective plane". In particular,

In the core of the seminal Graph Minor Theory of Robertson and Seymour lies a powerful theorem capturing the “rough ” structure of graphs excluding a fixed minor. This result was used to prove Wagner’s Conjecture that finite graphs are well-quasi-ordered under the graph minor relation. Recently, a number of beautiful results that use this structural result have appeared. Some of these along with some other recent advances on graph minors are surveyed. Keywords: Graph minor theory, Tree-width, Tree-decomposition, Path-decomposition, Complete

A graph is a minor of another if the first can be obtained from a subgraph of the second by contracting edges. An excluded minor theorem describes the structure of graphs with no minor isomorphic to a prescribed set of graphs. Splitter theorems are tools for proving excluded minor theorems. We discuss splitter theorems for internally 4-connected graphs and for cyclically 5-connected cubic graphs, the graph minor theorem of Robertson and Seymour, linkless embeddings of graphs in 3-space, Hadwiger’s conjecture on t-colorability of graphs with no Kt+1 minor, Tutte’s edge 3-coloring conjecture on edge 3-colorability of 2-connected cubic graphs with no Petersen minor, and Pfaffian orientations of bipartite graphs. The latter are related to the even directed circuit problem, a problem of Pólya about permanents, the 2-colorability of hypergraphs, and sign-nonsingular matrices.