Asymptotic equivalence of Hadwiger's conjecture and its odd minor-variant (Q2131858)

\textit{H. Hadwiger} [Vierteljahresschr. Naturforsch. Ges. Zürich 88, 133--142 (1943; Zbl 0061.41308)] posed the following conjecture which is an important problem in graph theory now. Conjecture 1. If $G$ is a graph which does not contain $K_t$ as a minor, then $\chi(G) \leq t - 1$. The following conjecture, which strengthens Hadwiger's conjecture, is due to Gerards and Seymour (see Page 115 in [\textit{T. R. Jensen} and \textit{B. Toft}, Graph coloring problems. New York, NY: John Wiley \& Sons (1995; Zbl 0855.05054)]). Conjecture 2. If $G$ is a graph which does not contain $K_t$ as an odd minor, then $\chi(G) \leq t - 1$. The author surveys several results on two conjectures and observes that whenever a certain asymptotic bound had been established for a chromatic number of $K_t$-minor free graphs, this bound could also be proved to hold for the chromatic number of odd $K_t$-minor free graphs. This paper aims at demonstrating that this phenomenon is no coincidence. The author presents a relatively short proof for the following theorem. Theorem 1. Let $t \in\mathcal{N}$ and let $f(t)$ be an integer such that every graph not containing $K_t$ as a minor is $f(t)$-colorable. Then every graph not containing $K_t$ as an odd minor is $2f(t)$-colorable. The above Theorem 1 can be used to simplify the proofs of the asymptotic bounds for the chromatic number of odd $K_t$-minor free graphs established previously.