On the maximum partial-dual genus of a planar graph

Abstract

Let $G$ be an embedded graph and $A$ an edge subset of $G$. The partial dual of $G$ with respect to $A$, denoted by $G^A$, can be viewed as the geometric dual $G^*$ of $G$ over $A$. If $A=E(G)$, then $G^A=G^*$. Denote by $\gamma(G^A)$ the genus of the embedded graph $G^A$. The maximum partial-dual genus of $G$ is defined as $$^\partial\gamma_{M}(G):=\max_{A \subseteq E(G)}\gamma(G^A).$$ For any planar graph $G$, it had been proved that $^\partial\gamma_{M}(G)$ does not rely on the embeddings of $G$. In this paper, we further prove that if $G$ is a connected planar graph of order $n\geq 2$, then $^{\partial}\gamma_{M}(G)\geq \frac{n-n_2-2n_1}{2}+1$, where $n_i$ is the number of vertices of degree $i$ in $G$. As a consequence, if $G$ is a connected planar graph of order $n$ with minimum degree at least 3, then $^{\partial}\gamma_{M}(G) \geq \frac{n}{2}+1$. Denote by $G^c$ the complement of a graph $G$ and by $\chi(G^c)$ the chromatic number of $G^c$. Moreover, we prove that if $G \ncong K_4$ is a $\lambda$-edge-connected planar graph of order $n$, then $^{\partial}\gamma_{M}(G) \geq f(n,\lambda,\chi(G^c))$, where $f(n,\lambda,\chi(G^c))$ is a function of $n$, $\lambda$ and $\chi(G^c)$. The first lower bound is tight for any $n$, and the second lower bound is tight for some 3-edge-connected graphs.