The celebrated Erdős-Pósa Theorem, in one formulation, asserts that for every c ∈ N, graphs with no subgraph (or equivalently, minor) isomorphic to the disjoint union of c cycles have bounded treewidth. What can we say about the treewidth of graphs containing no induced subgraph isomorphic to the disjoint union of c cycles? Let us call these graphs c-perforated. While 1-perforated graphs have treewidth one, complete graphs and complete bipartite graphs are examples of 2-perforated graphs with arbitrarily large treewidth. But there are sparse examples, too: Bonamy, Bonnet, Déprés, Esperet, Geniet, Hilaire, Thomassé and Wesolek constructed 2-perforated graphs with arbitrarily large treewidth and no induced subgraph isomorphic to K3 or K3,3; we call these graphs occultations. Indeed, it turns out that a mild (and inevitable) adjustment of occultations provides examples of 2-perforated graphs with arbitrarily large treewidth and arbitrarily large girth, which we refer to as full occultations. Our main result shows that the converse also holds: for every c ∈ N, a c-perforated graph has large treewidth if and only if it contains, as an induced subgraph, either a large complete graph, or a large complete bipartite graph, or a large full occultation. This distinguishes c-perforated graphs, among graph classes purely defined by forbidden induced subgraphs, as the first to admit a grid-type theorem incorporating obstructions other than subdivided walls and their line graphs. More generally, for all c, o ∈ N, we establish a full characterization of induced subgraph obstructions to bounded treewidth in graphs containing no induced subgraph isomorphic to the disjoint union of c cycles, each of length at least o + 2.
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Polynomial bounds for chromatic number VIII. Excluding a path and a complete multipartite graph
We prove that for every path , and every integer , there is a polynomial such that every graph with chromatic number greater than either contains as an induced subgraph, or contains as a subgraph the complete ‐partite graph with parts of cardinality . For and general this is a classical theorem of Gyárfás, and for and general this is a theorem of Bonamy et al.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2154169
- PAR ID:
- 10517606
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Graph Theory
- ISSN:
- 0364-9024
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- combinatorics
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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