Raphael Steiner

ETH Zurich | ETH Zürich · Department of Computer Science

We prove the following local strengthening of Shearer's classic bound on the independence number of triangle-free graphs: For every triangle-free graph $G$ there exists a probability distribution on its independent sets such that every vertex $v$ of $G$ is contained in a random independent set drawn from the distribution with probability $(1-o(1))\...

A graph is said to be Ramsey for a tuple of graphs if every ‐coloring of the edges of contains a monochromatic copy of in color , for some . A fundamental question at the intersection of Ramsey theory and the theory of random graphs is to determine the threshold at which the binomial random graph becomes asymptotically almost surely Ramsey for a fi...

We show that the twin-width of every $n$ -vertex $d$ -regular graph is at most $n^{\frac{d-2}{2d-2}+o(1)}$ for any fixed integer $d \geq 2$ and that almost all $d$ -regular graphs attain this bound. More generally, we obtain bounds on the twin-width of sparse Erdős–Renyi and regular random graphs, complementing the bounds in the denser regime due t...

Given a graph $G$, its Hall ratio $\rho(G)=\max_{H\subseteq G}\frac{|V(H)|}{\alpha(H)}$ forms a natural lower bound on its fractional chromatic number $\chi_f(G)$. A recent line of research studied the fundamental question of whether $\chi_f(G)$ can be bounded in terms of a (linear) function of $\rho(G)$. In a breakthrough-result, Dvo\v{r}\'{a}k, O...

We prove Menger-type results in which the obtained paths are pairwise non-adjacent, both for graphs of bounded maximum degree and, more generally, for graphs excluding a topological minor. More precisely, we show the existence of a constant $C$, depending only on the maximum degree or on the forbidden topological minor, such that for any pair of se...

Let $r$ be any positive integer. We prove that for every sufficiently large $k$ there exists a $k$ -chromatic vertex-critical graph $G$ such that $\chi (G-R)=k$ for every set $R \subseteq E(G)$ with $|R|\le r$ . This partially solves a problem posed by Erdős in 1985, who asked whether the above statement holds for $k \ge 4$ .

In 1992, Erd\H{o}s and Hajnal posed the following natural problem: Does there exist, for every $r\in \mathbb{N}$, an integer $F(r)$ such that every graph with chromatic number at least $F(r)$ contains $r$ edge-disjoint cycles on the same vertex set? We solve this problem in a strong form, by showing that there exist $n$-vertex graphs with fractiona...

Motivated by Hadwiger's conjecture, we study the problem of finding the densest possible ‐vertex minor in graphs of average degree at least . We show that if has average degree at least , it contains a minor on vertices with at least edges. We show that this cannot be improved beyond . Finally, for we exactly determine the number of edges we are gu...

We present progress on two old conjectures about longest cycles in graphs. The first conjecture, due to Thomassen from 1978, states that apart from a finite number of exceptions, all connected vertex-transitive graphs contain a Hamiltonian cycle. The second conjecture, due to Smith from 1984, states that for $r\ge 2$ in every $r$-connected graph an...

The cochromatic number $\zeta(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the smallest number of colors in a vertex-coloring of $G$ such that every color class forms an independent set or a clique. In three papers written around 1990, Erd\H{o}s, Gimbel and collaborators raised several open problems regarding the relationship of the chromatic and cochromatic number of a...

An $\ell$-lift of a graph $G$ is any graph obtained by replacing every vertex of $G$ with an independent set of size $\ell$, and connecting every pair of two such independent sets that correspond to an edge in $G$ by a matching of size $\ell$. Graph lifts have found numerous interesting applications and connections to a variety of areas over the ye...

For a finite Abelian group $(\Gamma,+)$, let $n(\Gamma)$ denote the smallest positive integer $n$ such that for each labelling of the arcs of the complete digraph of order $n$ using elements from $\Gamma$, there exists a directed cycle such that the total sum of the arc-labels along the cycle equals $0$. Alon and Krivelevich initiated the study of...

For a finite (not necessarily Abelian) group $(\Gamma,\cdot)$, let $n(\Gamma) \in \mathbb{N}$ denote the smallest positive integer $n$ such that for every labelling of the arcs of the complete digraph of order $n$ using elements from $\Gamma$, there exists a directed cycle such that the arc-labels along the cycle multiply to the identity. Alon and...

A set G\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal {G}}$$\end{document} of planar graphs on the same number n of vertices is called simultaneously embedda...

We consider random graph models in which the events describing the inclusion of potential edges have to be independent of each other if the corresponding edges are non‐adjacent and ask: what is the minimum probability ρ(n)$$ \rho (n) $$, such that for any distribution 𝒢 (in this model) on graphs with n$$ n $$ vertices in which each potential edge h...

The Circuit diameter of polytopes was introduced by Borgwardt, Finhold and Hem-mecke [BFH15] as a fundamental tool for the study of circuit augmentation schemes for linear programming and for estimating combinatorial diameters. Determining the complexity of computing the circuit diameter of polytopes was posed as an open problem by Sanità [San20] a...

A set \(\mathcal {G}\) of planar graphs on the same number n of vertices is called simultaneously embeddable if there exists a set P of n points in the plane such that every graph \(G \in \mathcal {G}\) admits a (crossing-free) straight-line embedding with vertices placed at points of P. A conflict collection is a set of planar graphs of the same o...

A tantalizing open problem, posed independently by Stiebitz in 1995 and by Alon in 2006, asks whether for every pair of integers s, t ≥ 1 there exists a finite number F(s, t) such that the vertex set of every digraph of minimum out-degree at least F(s, t) can be partitioned into non-empty parts A and B such that the subdigraphs induced on A and B h...

Given a graph $H$ , let us denote by $f_\chi (H)$ and $f_\ell (H)$ , respectively, the maximum chromatic number and the maximum list chromatic number of $H$ -minor-free graphs. Hadwiger’s famous colouring conjecture from 1943 states that $f_\chi (K_t)=t-1$ for every $t \ge 2$ . A closely related problem that has received significant attention in th...

We consider the computational problem of finding short paths in the skeleton of the perfect matching polytope of a bipartite graph. We prove that unless \({\textsf {P}}={\textsf {NP}}\), there is no polynomial-time algorithm that computes a path of constant length between two vertices at distance two of the perfect matching polytope of a bipartite...

Let r be any positive integer. We prove that for every sufficiently large k there exists a k-chromatic vertex-critical graph G such that χ(G−R) = k for every set R ⊆ E(G) with |R| ≤ r. This partially solves a problem posed by Erdős in 1985, who asked whether the above statement holds for k ≥ 4.

We prove Menger-type results in which the obtained paths are pairwise non-adjacent, both for graphs of bounded maximum degree and, more generally, for graphs excluding a topological minor. We further show better bounds in the subcubic case, and in particular obtain a tight result for two paths using a computer-assisted proof.

The clustered chromatic number of a graph class $\mathcal{G}$ is the minimum integer $c$ such that every graph $G\in\mathcal{G}$ has a $c$-colouring where each monochromatic component in $G$ has bounded size. We study the clustered chromatic number of graph classes $\mathcal{G}_H^{\text{odd}}$ defined by excluding a graph $H$ as an odd-minor. How d...

We prove that for every digraph and every assignment of pairs of integers to its arcs there exists an integer such that every digraph with dichromatic number greater than contains a subdivision of in which is subdivided into a directed path of length congruent to modulo , for every . This generalizes to the directed setting the analogous result by...

In 2006, Noga Alon raised the following open problem: Does there exist an absolute constant such that every ‐vertex digraph with minimum out‐degree at least contains an ‐vertex subdigraph with minimum out‐degree at least ? In this note, we answer this natural question in the negative, by showing that for arbitrarily large values of there exists a ‐...

Size-Ramsey numbers are a central notion in combinatorics and have been widely studied since their introduction by Erd\H{o}s, Faudree, Rousseau and Schelp in 1978. Research has mainly focused on the size-Ramsey numbers of $n$-vertex graphs with constant maximum degree $\Delta$. For example, graphs which also have constant treewidth are known to hav...

Motivated by Hadwiger's conjecture, we study the problem of finding the densest possible $t$-vertex minor in graphs of average degree at least $t-1$. We show that if $G$ has average degree at least $t-1$, it contains a minor on $t$ vertices with at least $(\sqrt{2}-1-o(1))\binom{t}{2}$ edges. We show that this cannot be improved beyond $\left(\frac...

A set $\mathcal{G}$ of planar graphs on the same number $n$ of vertices is called simultaneously embeddable if there exists a set $P$ of $n$ points in the plane such that every graph $G \in \mathcal{G}$ admits a (crossing-free) straight-line embedding with vertices placed at points of $P$. A well-known open problem from 2007 posed by Brass, Cenek,...

Scott and Seymour conjectured the existence of a function $f \colon \mathbb{N} \to \mathbb{N}$ such that, for every graph $G$ and tournament $T$ on the same vertex set, $\chi(G) \geqslant f(k)$ implies that $\chi(G[N_T^+(v)]) \geqslant k$ for some vertex $v$. In this note we disprove this conjecture even if $v$ is replaced by a vertex set of size $...

We consider the computational problem of finding short paths in the skeleton of the perfect matching polytope of a bipartite graph. We prove that unless \(\textsf{P}=\textsf{NP}\), there is no polynomial-time algorithm that computes a path of constant length between two vertices at distance two of the perfect matching polytope of a bipartite graph....

For any positive edge density $p$, a random graph in the Erd\H{o}s-Renyi $G_{n,p}$ model is connected with non-zero probability, since all edges are mutually independent. We consider random graph models in which edges that do not share endpoints are independent while incident edges may be dependent and ask: what is the minimum probability $\rho(n)$...

Given a graph $H$, let us denote by $f_\chi(H)$ and $f_\ell(H)$, respectively, the maximum chromatic number and the maximum list chromatic number of $H$-minor-free graphs. Hadwiger's famous coloring conjecture from 1943 states that $f_\chi(K_t)=t-1$ for every $t \ge 2$. In contrast, for list coloring it is known that $2t-o(t) \le f_\ell(K_t) \le O(...

Given a constant α>0, an n-vertex graph is called an α-expander if every set X of at most n/2 vertices in G has an external neighborhood of size at least α|X|. Addressing a question posed by Friedman and Krivelevich in [Combinatorica, 41(1), (2021), pp. 53–74], we prove the following result: Let k>1 be an integer with smallest prime divisor p. Then...

A finite set $P$ of points in the plane is $n$-universal with respect to a class $\mathcal{C}$ of planar graphs if every $n$-vertex graph in $\mathcal{C}$ admits a crossing-free straight-line drawing with vertices at points of $P$. For the class of all planar graphs the best known upper bound on the size of a universal point set is quadratic and th...

Barnette's Conjecture claims that all cubic, 3-connected, planar, bipartite graphs are Hamiltonian. We give a translation of this conjecture into the matching-theoretic setting. This allows us to relax the requirement of planarity to give the equivalent conjecture that all cubic, 3-connected, Pfaffian, bipartite graphs are Hamiltonian. A graph, oth...

Gerards and Seymour conjectured in 1995 that every graph G contains Kχ(G) as an odd-minor, this strengthening of Hadwiger's conjecture is known as the Odd Hadwiger's conjecture. We give a short proof that this conjecture holds for line-graphs of simple graphs.

We prove a conjecture by Aboulker, Charbit, and Naserasr by showing that every oriented graph in which the out‐neighborhood of every vertex induces a transitive tournament can be partitioned into two acyclic induced subdigraphs. We prove multiple extensions of this result to larger classes of digraphs defined by a finite list of forbidden induced s...

We consider the computational problem of finding short paths in the skeleton of the perfect matching polytope of a bipartite graph. We prove that unless $P=NP$, there is no polynomial-time algorithm that computes a path of constant length between two vertices at distance two of the perfect matching polytope of a bipartite graph. Conditioned on $P\n...

In 2006, Noga Alon raised the following open problem: Does there exist an absolute constant $c>0$ such that every $2n$-vertex digraph with minimum out-degree at least $s$ contains an $n$-vertex subdigraph with minimum out-degree at least $\frac{s}{2}-c$ ? In this note, we answer this natural question in the negative, by showing that for arbitrarily...

A colouring of a digraph as defined by Neumann-Lara in 1982 is a vertex-colouring such that no monochromatic directed cycles exist. The minimal number of colours required for such a colouring of a loopless digraph is defined to be its dichromatic number. This quantity has been widely studied in the last decades and can be considered as a natural di...

For a fixed simple digraph F and a given simple digraph D, an F-free k-coloring of D is a vertex-coloring in which no induced copy of F in D is monochromatic. We study the complexity of deciding for fixed F and k whether a given simple digraph admits an F-free k-coloring. Our main focus is on the restriction of the problem to planar input digraphs,...

Strengthening Hadwiger’s conjecture, Gerards and Seymour conjectured in 1995 that every graph with no odd $K_t$ -minor is properly $(t-1)$ -colourable. This is known as the Odd Hadwiger’s conjecture . We prove a relaxation of the above conjecture, namely we show that every graph with no odd $K_t$ -minor admits a vertex $(2t-2)$ -colouring such that...

Hadwiger's famous coloring conjecture states that every $t$-chromatic graph contains a $K_t$-minor. Holroyd [Bull. London Math. Soc. 29, (1997), pp. 139--144] conjectured the following strengthening of Hadwiger's conjecture: If $G$ is a $t$-chromatic graph and $S \subseteq V(G)$ takes all colors in every $t$-coloring of $G$, then $G$ contains a $K_...

We prove that for every digraph $F$ and every assignment of pairs of integers $(r_e,q_e)_{e \in A(F)}$ to its arcs there exists an integer $N$ such that every digraph $D$ with dichromatic number at least $N$ contains a subdivision of $F$ in which $e$ is subdivided into a directed path of length congruent to $r_e$ modulo $q_e$, for every $e \in A(F)...

Given an integer $k$ and a graph where every edge is colored either red or blue, the goal of the exact matching problem is to find a perfect matching with the property that exactly $k$ of its edges are red. Soon after Papadimitriou and Yannakakis introduced the problem in 1982, a randomized polynomial-time algorithm solving the problem was describe...

In this article we discuss classic theorems from Convex Geometry in the context of topological drawings and beyond. In a simple topological drawing of the complete graph Kn\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek}...

Hadwiger's conjecture states that every Kt-minor free graph is (t−1)-colorable. A qualitative strengthening of this conjecture raised by Gerards and Seymour, known as the Odd Hadwiger's conjecture, states similarly that every graph with no odd Kt-minor is (t−1)-colorable. For both conjectures, their asymptotic relaxations remain open, i.e., whether...

In 2001, in a survey article about list coloring, Woodall conjectured that for every pair of integers $s,t \ge 1$, all graphs without a $K_{s,t}$-minor are $(s+t-1)$-choosable. In this note we refute this conjecture in a strong form: We prove that for every choice of constants $\varepsilon>0$ and $C \ge 1$ there exists $N=N(\varepsilon,C) \in \math...

Hadwiger's conjecture, among the most famous open problems in graph theory, states that every graph that does not contain $K_t$ as a minor is properly $(t-1)$-colorable. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate that a natural extension of Hadwiger's problem to hypergraph coloring exists, and to derive some first partial results and applications....

The dichromatic number χ→(D) $\overrightarrow{\chi }(D)$ of a digraph D $D$ is the smallest k $k$ for which it admits a k $k$‐coloring where every color class induces an acyclic subgraph. Inspired by Hadwiger's conjecture for undirected graphs, several groups of authors have recently studied the containment of complete directed minors in digraphs w...

Hadwiger’s conjecture asserts that every graph without a $K_t$ -minor is $(t-1)$ -colourable. It is known that the exact version of Hadwiger’s conjecture does not extend to list colouring, but it has been conjectured by Kawarabayashi and Mohar (2007) that there exists a constant $c$ such that every graph with no $K_t$ -minor has list chromatic numb...

In 1985, Mader conjectured that for every acyclic digraph F there exists K = K(F) such that every digraph D with minimum out-degree at least K contains a subdivision of F. This conjecture remains widely open, even for digraphs F on five vertices. Recently, Aboulker, Cohen, Havet, Lochet, Moura and Thomassé studied special cases of Mader’s problem a...

Felsner, Hurtado, Noy and Streinu (2000) conjectured that arrangement graphs of simple great-circle arrangements have chromatic number at most $3$. Motivated by this conjecture, we study the colorability of arrangement graphs for different classes of arrangements of (pseudo-)circles. In this paper the conjecture is verified for $\triangle$-saturate...

Given a constant $\alpha>0$, an $n$-vertex graph is called an $\alpha$-expander if every set $X$ of at most $n/2$ vertices in $G$ has an external neighborhood of size at least $\alpha|X|$. Addressing a question posed by Friedman and Krivelevich in [Combinatorica, 41(1), (2021), pp. 53--74], we prove the following result: Let $k>1$ be an integer wit...

Strengthening Hadwiger's conjecture, Gerards and Seymour conjectured in 1995 that every graph with no odd $K_t$-minor is properly $(t-1)$-colorable, this is known as the Odd Hadwiger's conjecture. We prove a relaxation of the above conjecture, namely we show that every graph with no odd $K_t$-minor admits a vertex $(2t-2)$-coloring such that all mo...

We investigate bounds on the dichromatic number of digraphs which avoid a fixed digraph as a topological minor. For a digraph F, denote by maderχ→(F) the smallest integer k such that every k-dichromatic digraph contains a subdivision of F. As our first main result, we prove that if F is an orientation of a cycle then maderχ→(F)=v(F). This settles a...

In the \emph{Exact Matching Problem} (EM), we are given a graph equipped with a fixed coloring of its edges with two colors (red and blue), as well as a positive integer $k$. The task is then to decide whether the given graph contains a perfect matching exactly $k$ of whose edges have color red. EM generalizes several important algorithmic problems...

Barnette's Conjecture claims that all cubic, 3-connected, planar, bipartite graphs are Hamiltonian. We give a translation of this conjecture into the matching-theoretic setting. This allows us to relax the requirement of planarity to give the equivalent conjecture that all cubic, 3-connected, Pfaffian, bipartite graphs are Hamiltonian. A graph, oth...

We characterize all digraphs $H$ such that orientations of chordal graphs with no induced copy of $H$ have bounded dichromatic number.

We consider cell colorings of drawings of graphs in the plane. Given a multi-graph $G$ together with a drawing $\Gamma(G)$ in the plane with only finitely many crossings, we define a cell $k$-coloring of $\Gamma(G)$ to be a coloring of the maximal connected regions of the drawing, the cells, with $k$ colors such that adjacent cells have different c...

In 2001, Woodall conjectured that for every pair of integers $s,t \ge 1$, all graphs without a $K_{s,t}$-minor are $(s+t-1)$-choosable. In this note we refute this conjecture in a strong form: We prove that for every choice of constants $\varepsilon>0$ and $C \ge 1$ there exists $N=N(\varepsilon,C) \in \mathbb{N}$ such that for all integers $s,t $...

Assume $n$ players are placed on the $n$ vertices of a graph $G$. The following game was introduced by Winkler: An adversary puts a hat on each player, where each hat has a colour out of $q$ available colours. The players can see the hat of each of their neighbours in $G$, but not their own hat. Using a prediscussed guessing strategy, the players t...

Recently, the second and third author showed that complete geometric graphs on $2n$ vertices in general cannot be partitioned into $n$ plane spanning trees. Building up on this work, in this paper, we initiate the study of partitioning into beyond planar subgraphs, namely into $k$-planar and $k$-quasi-planar subgraphs and obtain first bounds on the...

Given a non-trivial finite Abelian group (A,+), let n(A)≥2 be the smallest integer such that for every labelling of the arcs of the bidirected complete graph K↔n(A) with elements from A there exists a directed cycle for which the sum of the arc-labels is zero. The problem of determining n(Zq) for integers q≥2 was recently considered by Alon and Kri...

Alon and Krivelevich proved that for every $n$-vertex subcubic graph $H$ and every integer $q \ge 2$ there exists a (smallest) integer $f=f(H,q)$ such that every $K_f$-minor contains a subdivision of $H$ in which the length of every subdivision-path is divisible by $q$. Improving their superexponential bound, we show that $f(H,q) \le \frac{21}{2}qn...

Hadwiger's conjecture asserts that every graph without a $K_t$-minor is $(t-1)$-colorable. It is known that the exact version of Hadwiger's conjecture does not extend to list coloring, but it has been conjectured by Kawarabayashi and Mohar (2007) that there exists a constant $c$ such that every graph with no $K_t$-minor has list chromatic number at...

Hadwiger's conjecture states that every $K_t$-minor free graph is $(t-1)$-colorable. A qualitative strengthening of this conjecture raised by Gerards and Seymour, known as the Odd Hadwiger's conjecture, states similarly that every graph with no odd $K_t$-minor is $(t-1)$-colorable. For both conjectures, their asymptotic relaxations remain open, i.e...

Felsner, Hurtado, Noy and Streinu (2000) conjectured that arrangement graphs of simple great-circle arrangements have chromatic number at most 3. This paper is motivated by the conjecture. We show that the conjecture holds in the special case when the arrangement is ▵-saturated, i.e., arrangements where one color class of the 2-coloring of faces co...

An orientation of a graph G is Pfaffian if every even cycle C such that G-V(C) has a perfect matching has an odd number of edges oriented in either direction of traversal. Graphs that admit a Pfaffian orientation permit counting the number of their perfect matchings in polynomial time. We consider a strengthening of Pfaffian orientations. An orient...

A majority coloring of a directed graph is a vertex-coloring in which every vertex has the same color as at most half of its out-neighbors. Kreutzer, Oum, Seymour, van der Zypen and Wood proved that every digraph has a majority $4$-coloring and conjectured that every digraph admits a majority $3$-coloring. They observed that the Local Lemma implies...

Given a non-trivial finite Abelian group $(A,+)$, let $n(A) \ge 2$ be the smallest integer such that for every labelling of the arcs of the bidirected complete graph of order $n(A)$ with elements from $A$ there exists a directed cycle for which the sum of the arc-labels is zero. The problem of determining $n(\mathbb{Z}_q)$ for integers $q \ge 2$ wa...

We prove a conjecture by Aboulker, Charbit and Naserasr by showing that every oriented graph in which the out-neighborhood of every vertex induces a transitive tournament can be partitioned into two acyclic induced subdigraphs. We prove multiple extensions of this result to larger classes of digraphs defined by a finite list of forbidden induced su...

For a fixed simple digraph $F$ and a given simple digraph $D$, an $F$-free $k$-coloring of $D$ is a vertex-coloring in which no induced copy of $F$ in $D$ is monochromatic. We study the complexity of deciding for fixed $F$ and $k$ whether a given simple digraph admits an $F$-free $k$-coloring. Our main focus is on the restriction of the problem to...

In this article we discuss classical theorems from Convex Geometry in the context of topological drawings. In a simple topological drawing of the complete graph Kn, any two edges share at most one point: either a common vertex or a point where they cross. Triangles of simple topological drawings can be viewed as convex sets. This gives a link to co...

The dichromatic number $\vec{\chi}(D)$ of a digraph $D$ is the smallest $k$ for which it admits a $k$-coloring where every color class induces an acyclic subgraph. Inspired by Hadwiger's conjecture for undirected graphs, several groups of authors have recently studied the containment of directed graph minors in digraphs with given dichromatic numbe...

Flip graphs are a ubiquitous class of graphs, which encode relations on a set of combinatorial objects by elementary, local changes. Skeletons of associahedra, for instance, are the graphs induced by quadrilateral flips in triangulations of a convex polygon. For some definition of a flip graph, a natural computational problem to consider is the fli...

The digirth of a digraph is the length of a shortest directed cycle. The dichromatic number χ→(D) of a digraph D is the smallest size of a partition of the vertex-set into subsets inducing acyclic subgraphs. A conjecture by Harutyunyan and Mohar (2011) states that χ→(D)≤Δ4+1 for every digraph D of digirth at least 3 and maximum degree Δ. The best k...

A conjecture by Lichiardopol states that for every $k \ge 1$ there exists an integer $g(k)$ such that every digraph of minimum out-degree at least $g(k)$ contains $k$ vertex-disjoint directed cycles of pairwise distinct lengths. Motivated by Lichiardopol's conjecture, we study the existence of vertex-disjoint directed cycles satisfying length const...

In this paper we generalise the even directed cycle problem, which asks whether a given digraph contains a directed cycle of even length, to orientations of regular matroids. We define non-even oriented matroids generalising non-even digraphs, which played a central role in resolving the computational complexity of the even dicycle problem. Then we...

In 1985, Mader conjectured that for every acyclic digraph $F$ there exists $K=K(F)$ such that every digraph $D$ with minimum out-degree at least $K$ contains a subdivision of $F$. This conjecture remains widely open, even for digraphs $F$ on five vertices. Recently, Aboulker, Cohen, Havet, Lochet, Moura and Thomass\'{e} studied special cases of Mad...

We investigate bounds on the dichromatic number of digraphs which avoid a fixed digraph as a topological minor. For a digraph $F$, denote by $\text{mader}_{\vec{\chi}}(F)$ the smallest integer $k$ such that every $k$-dichromatic digraph contains a subdivision of $F$. As our first main result, we prove that if $F$ is an orientation of a cycle then $...

We consider face-colorings of drawings of graphs in the plane. Given a multi-graph $G$ together with a drawing $\Gamma(G)$ in the plane with only finitely many crossings, we define a face-$k$-coloring of $\Gamma(G)$ to be a coloring of the maximal connected regions of the drawing, the faces, with $k$ colors such that adjacent faces have different c...

We study two parameters that arise from the dichromatic number and the vertex-arboricity in the same way that the achromatic number comes from the chromatic number. The adichromatic number of a digraph is the largest number of colors its vertices can be colored with such that every color induces an acyclic subdigraph but merging any two colors yiel...

In this article we discuss classical theorems from Convex Geometry in the context of topological drawings. In a simple topological drawing of the complete graph $K_n$, any two edges share at most one point: either a common vertex or a point where they cross. Triangles of simple topological drawings can be viewed as convex sets, this gives a link to...

Representations of planar triangulations as contact graphs of a set of internally disjoint homothetic triangles or of a set of internally disjoint homothetic squares have received quite some attention in recent years. In this paper we investigate representations of planar triangulations as contact graphs of a set of internally disjoint homothetic p...

The digirth of a digraph is the length of a shortest directed cycle. The dichromatic number $\vec{\chi}(D)$ of a digraph $D$ is the smallest size of a partition of the vertex-set into subsets inducing acyclic subgraphs. A conjecture by Harutyunyan and Mohar states that $\vec{\chi}(D) \le \left\lceil\frac{\Delta}{4}\right\rceil+1$ for every digraph...

We investigate which planar point sets allow simultaneous straight-line embeddings of all planar graphs on a fixed number of vertices. We first show that at least $(1.293-o(1))n$ points are required to find a straight-line drawing of each $n$-vertex planar graph (vertices are drawn as the given points); this improves the previous best constant $1.2...

Many well-known -hard algorithmic problems on directed graphs resist efficient parameterizations with most known width measures for directed graphs, such as directed treewidth, DAG-width, Kelly-width and many others. While these focus on measuring how close a digraph is to an oriented tree resp. a directed acyclic graph, in this paper, we investiga...

We investigate which planar point sets allow simultaneous straight-line embeddings of all planar graphs on a fixed number of vertices. We first show that at least (1.293-o(1))n points are required to find a straight-line drawing of each n-vertex planar graph (vertices are drawn as the given points); this improves the previous best constant 1.235 by...