A basic elementary extension of the Duchet-Meyniel theorem

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Publication:960956



Abstract: The Conjecture of Hadwiger implies that the Hadwiger number h times the independence number alpha of a graph is at least the number of vertices n of the graph. In 1982 Duchet and Meyniel proved a weak version of the inequality, replacing the independence number alpha by 2alpha−1, that is, (2alpha-1)cdot h geq n. In 2005 Kawarabayashi, Plummer and the second author published an improvement of the theorem, replacing 2alpha−1 by 2alpha−3/2 when alpha is at least 3. Since then a further improvement by Kawarabayashi and Song has been obtained, replacing 2alpha−1 by 2alpha−2 when alpha is at least 3. In this paper a basic elementary extension of the Theorem of Duchet and Meyniel is presented. This may be of help to avoid dealing with basic cases when looking for more substantial improvements. The main unsolved problem (due to Seymour) is to improve, even just slightly, the theorem of Duchet and Meyniel in the case when the independence number alpha is equal to 2. The case alpha=2 of Hadwiger's Conjecture was first pointed out by Mader as an interesting special case.












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