arXiv subjects

Gexin Yu

Publications and source records attributed to Gexin Yu.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Connectivities for k-knitted graphs and for minimal counterexamples to Hadwiger's Conjecture

For a given subset $S\subseteq V(G)$ of a graph $G$, the pair $(G,S)$ is \emph{knitted} if for every partition of $S$ into non-empty subsets $S_1, S_2, \ldots, S_t$, there exist pairwise disjoint connected subgraphs $C_1, C_2, \ldots, C_t$ in $G$ such that $S_i\subseteq V(C_i)$ for all $1 \le i \le t$. A graph $G$ is \emph{$\ell$-knitted} if $(G,S)$ is knitted for every subset $S\subseteq V(G)$ of size $\ell$. In this paper, we prove that every $8\ell$-connected graph is $\ell$-knitted. We subsequently apply this result to Hadwiger's Conjecture, which states that every $k$-chromatic graph contains a $K_k$-minor. Specifically, we demonstrate that the vertex connectivity of any minimal counterexample to Hadwiger's Conjecture is at least $\lceil k/8 \rceil$, improving upon the previous lower bound of $\lceil 2k/27 \rceil$ established by Kawarabayashi (2007). Our proof corrects a gap in the argument of Kawarabayashi-Yu~(2013) and establishes the claim stated without proof in Liu--Rolek--Yu~(2019).

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arXiv2026

Flexible DP-4-coloring of planar graphs without 4-cycles and intersecting triangles

Graph coloring with preferences offers a powerful framework for constraint satisfaction problems in which fulfilling every request is impossible but satisfying a guaranteed positive fraction is highly desirable. A \emph{request} on a graph $G$ equipped with a list assignment $L$ assigns to each vertex of some subset $dom(r)\subseteq V(G)$ a preferred color from its list. Following Dvo\v{r}\'{a}k, Norin, and Postle (2019), $G$ is \emph{$\varepsilon$-flexibly $k$-choosable} if, for every $k$-list assignment $L$ and every request $r$, there is an $L$-coloring of $G$ that agrees with $r$ on at least $\varepsilon|dom(r)|$ vertices. The corresponding notion for DP-coloring (correspondence coloring) was formalized by Bradshaw, Choi, and Kostochka (2025). Choi, Clemen, Ferrara, Horn, Ma, and Masa\v{r}\'{i}k (2022) proved that every planar graph without $4$-cycles and with $3$-cycle distance at least $2$ is $\varepsilon$-flexibly $4$-choosable. We improve the result in two respects: weakening the hypothesis from $3$-cycle distance $\geq 2$ to vertex-disjoint triangles, and strengthening the conclusion from list flexibility to weighted DP-flexibility: \emph{Every simple planar graph without $4$-cycles and without intersecting triangles is weighted $\varepsilon$-flexibly DP-$4$-colorable.} The list size $4$ is sharp: Montassier, Raspaud, and Wang constructed a planar graph without $4$-cycles, $5$-cycles, and intersecting triangles that is not $3$-choosable.

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arXiv2025

Planar Graphs with Ore-degree at Most seven is strongly $13$-edge-colorable

A strong edge-coloring of a graph $G$ is a coloring of edges of $G$ such that every color class forms an induced matching. The strong chromatic index is the minimum number of colors needed to color the graph. The Ore-degree $\theta(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the maximum sum of degrees of adjacent vertices. We show that every planar graph $G$ with $\theta(G)\le 7$ has strong chromatic index at most $13$. This settles a conjecture of Chen et al in the planar case. We use a discharging method, and apply Combinatorial Nullstellensatz to show reducible configurations. We provide an algorithm to allow Combinatorial Nullstellansatz extracting coefficients from large polynomials.

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arXiv2025

Connectivity of contraction-critical graphs

Contraction-critical graphs came from the study of minimal counterexamples to Hadwiger's conjecture. A graph is $k$-contraction-critical if it is $k$-chromatic, but any proper minor is $(k-1)$-colorable. It is a long-standing result of Mader that $k$-contraction-critical graphs are $7$-connected for $k\ge7$. In this paper, we provide the improvement of Mader's result for small values of $k$. We show that $k$-contraction-critical graphs are $8$-connected for $k\ge17$, $9$-connected for $k\ge29$, and $10$-connected for $k\ge41$. As a corollary of one of our intermediate results, we also prove that every $30$-connected graph is $4$-linked.

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arXiv2024

On the $(1^2,2^4)$-packing edge-coloring of subcubic graphs

An induced matching in a graph $G$ is a matching such that its end vertices also induce a matching. A $(1^{\ell}, 2^k)$-packing edge-coloring of a graph $G$ is a partition of its edge set into disjoint unions of $\ell$ matchings and $k$ induced matchings. Gastineau and Togni (2019), as well as Hocquard, Lajou, and Lu\v{z}ar (2022), have conjectured that every subcubic graph is $(1^2,2^4)$-packing edge-colorable. In this paper, we confirm that their conjecture is true (for connected subcubic graphs with more than $70$ vertices). Our result is sharp due to the existence of subcubic graphs that are not $(1^2,2^3)$-packing edge-colorable.

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arXiv2023

A new connectivity bound for a tournament to be highly linked

A digraph $D$ is $k$-linked if for any pair of two disjoint sets $\{x_{1},x_{2},\ldots,x_{k}\}$ and $\{y_{1},y_{2},\ldots,y_{k}\}$ of vertices in $D$, there exist vertex disjoint dipaths $P_{1},P_{2},\ldots,P_{k}$ such that $P_{i}$ is a dipath from $x_{i}$ to $y_{i}$ for each $i\in[k]$. Pokrovskiy (JCTB, 2015) confirmed a conjecture of K\"{u}hn et al. (Proc. Lond. Math. Soc., 2014) by verifying that every $452k$-connected tournament is $k$-linked. Meng et al. (Eur. J. Comb., 2021) improved this upper bound by showing that any $(40k-31)$-connected tournament is $k$-linked. In this paper, we show a better upper bound by proving that every $\lceil 12.5k-6\rceil$-connected tournament with minimum out-degree at least $21k-14$ is $k$-linked. Furthermore, we improve a key lemma that was first introduced by Pokrovskiy (JCTB, 2015) and later enhanced by Meng et al. (Eur. J. Comb., 2021).

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arXiv2023

Cliques in Squares of Graphs with Maximum Average Degree less than 4

Hocquard, Kim, and Pierron constructed, for every even integer $D\ge 2$, a 2-degenerate graph $G_D$ with maximum degree $D$ such that $\omega(G_D^2)=\frac52D$. We prove for (a) all 2-degenerate graphs $G$ and (b) all graphs $G$ with $\mbox{mad}(G)<4$, upper bounds on the clique number $\omega(G^2)$ of $G^2$ that match the lower bound given by this construction, up to small additive constants. We show that if $G$ is 2-degenerate with maximum degree $D$, then $\omega(G^2)\le \frac52D+72$ (with $\omega(G^2)\le \frac52D+60$ when $D$ is sufficiently large). And if $G$ has $\mbox{mad}(G)<4$ and maximum degree $D$, then $\omega(G^2)\le \frac52D+532$. Thus, the construction of Hocquard et al. is essentially best possible. Our proofs introduce a "token passing" technique to derive crucial information about non-adjacencies in $G$ of vertices that are adjacent in $G^2$. This is a powerful technique for working with such graphs that has not previously appeared in the literature.

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arXiv2023

A sufficient condition for a hypergraph to have a Berge-$k$-factor

For any graph (hypergraph) $G$ with vertex set $V$ and edge set $E$, we define its incidence bipartite graph $\mathcal{I}(G)$ as the bipartite graph with bipartition $(E, V)$, where an edge $e \in E$ is adjacent to a vertex $v \in V$ in $\mathcal{I}(G)$ if and only if $e$ is incident to $v$ in $G$. This representation allows all concepts and properties of $G$ to be reformulated in terms of those of $\mathcal{I}(G)$. In this paper, we investigate the notions of graph toughness and $k$-factors in bipartite graphs through this incidence perspective. As an application, our result implies the classic theorem of Enomoto, Jackson, Katerinis, and Saito: for any integer $k \geq 1$, a $k$-tough graph $G$ has a $k$-factor if $k |V(G)|$ is even and $|V(G)| \geq k+1$. Furthermore, we extend this result to hypergraphs, without requiring uniformity.

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arXiv2023

Strong edge-coloring of 2-degenerate graphs

A strong edge-coloring of a graph $G$ is an edge-coloring in which every color class is an induced matching, and the strong chromatic index $\chi_s'(G)$ is the minimum number of colors needed in strong edge-colorings of $G$. A graph is $2$-degenerate if every subgraph has minimum degree at most $2$. Choi, Kim, Kostochka, and Raspaud (2016) showed $\chi_s'(G) \leq 5\Delta +1$ if $G$ is a $2$-degenerate graph with maximum degree $\Delta$. In this article, we improve it to $\chi_s'(G)\le 5\Delta-\Delta^{1/2-\epsilon}+2$ when $\Delta>4^{1/(2\epsilon)}$ for any $0<\epsilon<1/2$.

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arXiv2022

Spanning tree packing and 2-essential edge-connectivity

An edge (vertex) cut $X$ of $G$ is $r$-essential if $G-X$ has two components each of which has at least $r$ edges. A graph $G$ is $r$-essentially $k$-edge-connected (resp. $k$-connected) if it has no $r$-essential edge (resp. vertex) cuts of size less than $k$. If $r=1$, we simply call it essential. Recently, Lai and Li proved that every $m$-edge-connected essentially $h$-edge-connected graph contains $k$ edge-disjoint spanning trees, where $k,m,h$ are positive integers such that $k+1\le m\le 2k-1$ and $h\ge \frac{m^2}{m-k}-2$. In this paper, we show that every $m$-edge-connected and $2$-essentially $h$-edge-connected graph that is not a $K_5$ or a fat-triangle with multiplicity less than $k$ has $k$ edge-disjoint spanning trees, where $k+1\le m\le 2k-1$ and $$h\ge f(m,k)=\begin{cases} 2m+k-4+\frac{k(2k-1)}{2m-2k-1}, & m< k+\frac{1+\sqrt{8k+1}}{4}, \\ m+3k-4+\frac{k^2}{m-k}, & m\ge k+\frac{1+\sqrt{8k+1}}{4}. \end{cases}$$ Extending Zhan's result, we also prove that every 3-edge-connected essentially 5-edge-connected and $2$-essentially 8-edge-connected graph has two edge-disjoint spanning trees. As an application, this gives a new sufficient condition for Hamilton-connectedness of line graphs. In 2012, Kaiser and Vr\'ana proved that every 5-connected line graph of minimum degree at least 6 is Hamilton-connected. We allow graphs to have minimum degree 5 and prove that every 5-connected essentially 8-connected line graph is Hamilton-connected.

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arXiv2022

1-planar graphs are odd 13-colorable

An odd coloring of a graph $G$ is a proper coloring such that any non-isolated vertex in $G$ has a coloring appears odd times on its neighbors. The odd chromatic number, denoted by $\chi_o(G)$, is the minimum number of colors that admits an odd coloring of $G$. Petru\v{s}evski and \v{S}krekovski in 2021 introduced this notion and proved that if $G$ is planar, then $\chi_o(G)\le9$ and conjectured that $\chi_o(G)\le5$. More recently, Petr and Portier improved $9$ to $8$. A graph is $1$-planar if it can be drawn in the plane so that each edge is crossed by at most one other edge. Cranston, Lafferty and Song showed that every $1$-planar graph is odd $23$-colorable. In this paper, we improved this result and showed that every $1$-planar graph is odd $13$-colorable.

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arXiv2021

Sufficient conditions for 2-dimensional global rigidity

The 2-dimensional global rigidity has been shown to be equivalent to 3-connectedness and redundant rigidity by a combination of two results due to Jackson and Jord\'an, and Connelly, respectively. By the characterization, a theorem of Lov\'asz and Yemini implies that every $6$-connected graph is redundantly rigid, and thus globally rigid. The 6-connectedness is best possible, since there exist infinitely many 5-connected non-rigid graphs. Jackson, Servatius and Servatius used the idea of ``essential connectivity'' and proved that every 4-connected ``essentially 6-connected'' graph is redundantly rigid and thus global rigid. Since 3-connectedness is a necessary condition of global rigidity, it is interesting to study 3-connected graphs for redundant rigidity and thus globally rigidity. We utilize a different ``essential connectivity'', and prove that every 3-connected essentially 9-connected graph is redundantly rigid and thus globally rigid. The essential 9-connectedness is best possible. Under this essential connectivity, we also prove that every 4-connected essentially 6-connected graph is redundantly rigid and thus global rigid. Our proofs are based on discharging arguments.

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arXiv2021

Planar graphs without short even cycles are near-bipartite

A graph is {\em near-bipartite} if its vertex set can be partitioned into an independent set and a set that induces a forest. It is clear that near-bipartite graphs are $3$-colorable. In this note, we show that planar graphs without cycles of lengths in $\{4, 6, 8\}$ are near-bipartite.

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arXiv2020

Enhancing the Erd\H{o}s-Lov\'asz Tihany Conjecture for graphs with independence number two

Let $s\ge2$ and $t\ge2$ be integers. A graph $G$ is $(s,t)$-\emph{splittable} if $V(G)$ can be partitioned into two sets $S$ and $T$ such that $\chi(G[S])\geq s$ and $\chi(G[T])\geq t$. The well-known Erd\H{o}s-Lov\'asz Tihany Conjecture from 1968 states that every graph $G$ whose chromatic number $\chi(G)=s+t-1$ is more than its clique number $\omega(G)$ is $(s,t)$-splittable. In this paper, we prove an enhanced version of the Erd\H{o}s-Lov\'asz Tihany Conjecture for graphs with independence number two. That is, for every graph $G$ with $\chi(G)=s+t-1>\omega(G)+1$ is $(s,t+1)$-splittable. There are examples showing that this result is best possible.

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arXiv2020

Enhancing the Erd\H{o}s-Lov\'asz Tihany Conjecture for line graphs of multigraphs

In this paper, we prove an enhanced version of the Erd\H{o}s-Lov\'asz Tihany Conjecture for line graphs of multigraphs. That is, for every graph $G$ whose chromatic number $\chi(G)$ is more than its clique number $\omega(G)$ and for nonnegative integer $\ell$, any two integers $s,t \geq 3.5\ell+2$ with $s+t = \chi(G)+1$, there is a partition $(S,T)$ of the vertex set $V(G)$ such that $\chi(G[S])\geq s$ and $\chi(G[T])\geq t+\ell$. In particular, when $\ell=1$, we can obtain the same result just for any $s,t\geq4$. The Erd\H{o}s-Lov\'asz Tihany conjecture is a special case when $\ell=0$.

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arXiv2019

Packing $(1,1,2,2)$-coloring of some subcubic graphs

For a sequence of non-decreasing positive integers $S = (s_1, \ldots, s_k)$, a packing $S$-coloring is a partition of $V(G)$ into sets $V_1, \ldots, V_k$ such that for each $1\leq i \leq k$ the distance between any two distinct $x,y\in V_i$ is at least $s_i+1$. The smallest $k$ such that $G$ has a packing $(1,2, \ldots, k)$-coloring is called the packing chromatic number of $G$ and is denoted by $\chi_p(G)$. For a graph $G$, let $D(G)$ denote the graph obtained from $G$ by subdividing every edge. The question whether $\chi_p(D(G)) \le 5$ for all subcubic graphs was first asked by Gastineau and Togni and later conjectured by Bresar, Klavzar, Rall and Wash. Gastineau and Togni observed that if one can prove every subcubic graph except the Petersen graph is packing $(1,1,2,2)$-colorable then the conjecture holds. The maximum average degree, mad($G$), is defined to be $\max\{\frac{2|E(H)|}{|V(H)|}: H \subset G\}$. In this paper, we prove that subcubic graphs with $mad(G)<\frac{30}{11}$ are packing $(1,1,2,2)$-colorable. As a corollary, the conjecture of Bresar et al holds for every subcubic graph $G$ with $mad(G)<\frac{30}{11}$.

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arXiv2019

Planar graphs with girth at least 5 are (3,4)-colorable

A graph is $(d_1, \ldots, d_k)$-colorable if its vertex set can be partitioned into $k$ nonempty subsets so that the subgraph induced by the $i$th part has maximum degree at most $d_i$ for each $i\in\{1, \ldots, k\}$. It is known that for each pair $(d_1, d_2)$, there exists a planar graph with girth $4$ that is not $(d_1, d_2)$-colorable. This sparked the interest in finding the pairs $(d_1, d_2)$ such that planar graphs with girth at least $5$ are $(d_1, d_2)$-colorable. Given $d_1\leq d_2$, it is known that planar graphs with girth at least $5$ are $(d_1, d_2)$-colorable if either $d_1\geq 2$ and $d_1+d_2\geq 8$ or $d_1=1$ and $d_2\geq 10$. We improve an aforementioned result by providing the first pair $(d_1, d_2)$ in the literature satisfying $d_1+d_2\leq 7$ where planar graphs with girth at least $5$ are $(d_1, d_2)$-colorable. Namely, we prove that planar graphs with girth at least $5$ are $(3, 4)$-colorable.

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arXiv2019

Planar graphs without 7-cycles and butterflies are DP-4-colorable

DP-coloring (also known as correspondence coloring) is a generalization of list coloring, introduced by Dvo\v{r}\'ak and Postle in 2017. It is well-known that there are non-4-choosable planar graphs. Much attention has recently been put on sufficient conditions for planar graphs to be DP-$4$-colorable. In particular, for each $k \in \{3, 4, 5, 6\}$, every planar graph without $k$-cycles is DP-$4$-colorable. In this paper, we prove that every planar graph without $7$-cycles and butterflies is DP-$4$-colorable. Our proof can be easily modified to prove other sufficient conditions that forbid clusters formed by many triangles.

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