Hadwiger conjecture (graph theory)

In graph theory, the Hadwiger conjecture states that if G is loopless Unsolved problem in
and has no minor then its chromatic number . It is mathematics:
known to be true for t = 1 to 6. It is also a generalization of the four- Does every graph
color theorem and is considered one of the most challenging open with chromatic
problems in the field.[1] number have a -
vertex complete
In more detail, if all proper colorings of an undirected graph G use k graph as a minor?
or more colors, then one can find k disjoint connected subgraphs of (more unsolved problems
G such that each subgraph is connected by an edge to each other in mathematics)
subgraph. Contracting the edges within each of these
subgraphs so that each subgraph collapses to a single
vertex produces a complete graph Kk on k vertices as a
minor of G.

This conjecture, a far-reaching generalization of the four-

color problem, was made by Hugo Hadwiger in 1943 and is
still unsolved. Bollobás, Catlin & Erdős (1980) call it “one
of the deepest unsolved problems in graph theory.”[2]

Contents
Equivalent forms
A graph that requires four colors in any
Special cases and partial results
coloring, and four connected subgraphs
Generalizations that, when contracted, form a complete
graph, illustrating the case k = 4 of
Notes
Hadwiger's conjecture
References

Equivalent forms
An equivalent form of the Hadwiger conjecture (the contrapositive of the form stated above) is that, if
there is no sequence of edge contractions (each merging the two endpoints of some edge into a single
supervertex) that brings a graph G to the complete graph Kk, then G must have a vertex coloring with
k − 1 colors.

Note that, in a minimal k-coloring of any graph G, contracting each color class of the coloring to a single
vertex will produce a complete graph Kk. However, this contraction process does not produce a minor of
G because there is (by definition) no edge between any two vertices in the same color class, thus the
contraction is not an edge contraction (which is required for minors). Hadwiger's conjecture states that
there exists a different way of properly edge contracting sets of vertices to single vertices, producing a
complete graph Kk, in such a way that all the contracted sets are connected.
If Fk denotes the family of graphs having the property that all minors of graphs in Fk can be (k − 1)-
colored, then it follows from the Robertson–Seymour theorem that Fk can be characterized by a finite set
of forbidden minors. Hadwiger's conjecture is that this set consists of a single forbidden minor, Kk.

The Hadwiger number h(G) of a graph G is the size k of the largest complete graph Kk that is a minor of
G (or equivalently can be obtained by contracting edges of G). It is also known as the contraction clique
number of G.[2] The Hadwiger conjecture can be stated in the simple algebraic form χ(G) ≤ h(G) where
χ(G) denotes the chromatic number of G.

Special cases and partial results

The case where k = 2 is trivial: a graph requires more than one color if and only if it has an edge, and that
edge is itself a K2 minor. The case k = 3 is also easy: the graphs requiring three colors are the non-
bipartite graphs, and every non-bipartite graph has an odd cycle, which can be contracted to a 3-cycle,
that is, a K3 minor.

In the same paper in which he introduced the conjecture, Hadwiger proved its truth for k ≤ 4. The graphs
with no K4 minor are the series-parallel graphs and their subgraphs. Each graph of this type has a vertex
with at most two incident edges; one can 3-color any such graph by removing one such vertex, coloring
the remaining graph recursively, and then adding back and coloring the removed vertex. Because the
removed vertex has at most two edges, one of the three colors will always be available to color it when
the vertex is added back.

The truth of the conjecture for k = 5 implies the four color theorem: for, if the conjecture is true, every
graph requiring five or more colors would have a K5 minor and would (by Wagner's theorem) be
nonplanar. Klaus Wagner proved in 1937 that the case k = 5 is actually equivalent to the four color
theorem and therefore we now know it to be true. As Wagner showed, every graph that has no K5 minor
can be decomposed via clique-sums into pieces that are either planar or an 8-vertex Möbius ladder, and
each of these pieces can be 4-colored independently of each other, so the 4-colorability of a K5-minor-
free graph follows from the 4-colorability of each of the planar pieces.

Robertson, Seymour & Thomas (1993) proved the conjecture for k = 6, also using the four color theorem;
their paper with this proof won the 1994 Fulkerson Prize. It follows from their proof that linklessly
embeddable graphs, a three-dimensional analogue of planar graphs, have chromatic number at most
five.[3] Due to this result, the conjecture is known to be true for k ≤ 6, but it remains unsolved for all
k > 6.

For k = 7, some partial results are known: every 7-chromatic graph must contain either a K7 minor or
both a K4,4 minor and a K3,5 minor.[4]

Every graph G has a vertex with at most O(h(G) √log h(G)) incident edges,[5] from which it follows that
a greedy coloring algorithm that removes this low-degree vertex, colors the remaining graph, and then
adds back the removed vertex and colors it, will color the given graph with O(h(G) √log h(G)) colors.

Van der Zypen (2012) has constructed a graph H with χ(H) = ω but no Kω minor, demonstrating that the
conjecture does not hold for graphs with countably infinite coloring number.

Generalizations
György Hajós conjectured that Hadwiger's conjecture could be strengthened to subdivisions rather than
minors: that is, that every graph with chromatic number k contains a subdivision of a complete graph Kk.
Hajós' conjecture is true for k ≤ 4, but Catlin (1979) found counterexamples to this strengthened
conjecture for k ≥ 7; the cases k = 5 and k = 6 remain open.[6] Erdős & Fajtlowicz (1981) observed that
Hajós' conjecture fails badly for random graphs: for any ε > 0, in the limit as the number of vertices, n,
goes to infinity, the probability approaches one that a random n-vertex graph has chromatic number
≥ (1/2 − ε)n / log2 n, and that its largest clique subdivision has at most cn1/2 vertices for some constant c.
In this context, it is worth noting that the probability also approaches one that a random n-vertex graph
has Hadwiger number greater than or equal to its chromatic number, so the Hadwiger conjecture holds
for random graphs with high probability; more precisely, the Hadwiger number is with high probability a
constant times n/√log n.[2]

Borowiecki (1993) asked whether Hadwiger's conjecture could be extended to list coloring. For k ≤ 4,
every graph with list chromatic number k has a k-vertex clique minor. However, the maximum list
chromatic number of planar graphs is 5, not 4, so the extension fails already for K5-minor-free graphs.[7]
More generally, for every t ≥ 1, there exist graphs whose Hadwiger number is 3t + 1 and whose list
chromatic number is 4t + 1.[8]

Gerards and Seymour conjectured that every graph G with chromatic number k has a complete graph Kk
as an odd minor. Such a structure can be represented as a family of k vertex-disjoint subtrees of G, each
of which is two-colored, such that each pair of subtrees is connected by a monochromatic edge. Although
graphs with no odd Kk minor are not necessarily sparse, a similar upper bound holds for them as it does
for the standard Hadwiger conjecture: a graph with no odd Kk minor has chromatic number
χ(G) = O(k √log k).[9]

By imposing extra conditions on G, it may be possible to prove the existence of larger minors than Kk.
One example is the snark theorem, that every cubic graph requiring four colors in any edge coloring has
the Petersen graph as a minor, conjectured by W. T. Tutte and announced to be proved in 2001 by
Robertson, Sanders, Seymour, and Thomas.[10]

Notes
1. Diestel, Reinhard, 1959- Verfasser. Graph theory (http://worldcat.org/oclc/1048203362).
ISBN 9783662536216. OCLC 1048203362 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1048203362).
2. Bollobás, Catlin & Erdős (1980).
3. Nešetřil & Thomas (1985).
4. The existence of either a K7 or K3,5 minor was shown by Ken-ichi Kawarabayashi, and
Kawarabayashi & Toft (2005) proved the existence of either a K7 or K4,4 minor.
5. Kostochka (1984). The letter O in this expression invokes big O notation.
6. Yu & Zickfeld (2006).
7. Voigt (1993); Thomassen (1994).
8. Barát, Joret & Wood (2011).
9. Geelen et al. (2006); Kawarabayashi (Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series B, Volume
99, Issue 1, January 2009, Pages 20-29).
10. Pegg, Ed, Jr. (2002), "Book Review: The Colossal Book of Mathematics" (http://www.ams.or
g/notices/200209/rev-pegg.pdf) (PDF), Notices of the American Mathematical Society, 49
(9): 1084–1086, Bibcode:2002ITED...49.1084A (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002ITE
D...49.1084A), doi:10.1109/TED.2002.1003756 (https://doi.org/10.1109%2FTED.2002.1003
756).

References
Barát, János; Joret, Gwenaël; Wood, David R. (2011), "Disproof of the list Hadwiger
conjecture" (http://www.combinatorics.org/Volume_18/Abstracts/v18i1p232.html), Electronic
Journal of Combinatorics, 18 (1): P232, arXiv:1110.2272 (https://arxiv.org/abs/1110.2272).
Bollobás, B.; Catlin, P. A.; Erdős, Paul (1980), "Hadwiger's conjecture is true for almost
every graph" (http://www.renyi.hu/~p_erdos/1980-10.pdf) (PDF), European Journal of
Combinatorics, 1: 195–199, doi:10.1016/s0195-6698(80)80001-1 (https://doi.org/10.1016%
2Fs0195-6698%2880%2980001-1).
Borowiecki, Mieczyslaw (1993), "Research problem 172", Discrete Mathematics, 121: 235–
236, doi:10.1016/0012-365X(93)90557-A (https://doi.org/10.1016%2F0012-365X%2893%2
990557-A).
Catlin, P. A. (1979), "Hajós's graph-colouring conjecture: variations and counterexamples",
Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series B, 26 (2): 268–274, doi:10.1016/0095-
8956(79)90062-5 (https://doi.org/10.1016%2F0095-8956%2879%2990062-5).
Erdős, Paul; Fajtlowicz, Siemion (1981), "On the conjecture of Hajós", Combinatorica, 1 (2):
141–143, doi:10.1007/BF02579269 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2FBF02579269).
Geelen, Jim; Gerards, Bert; Reed, Bruce; Seymour, Paul; Vetta, Adrian (2006), "On the odd-
minor variant of Hadwiger's conjecture", Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series B, 99 (1):
20–29, doi:10.1016/j.jctb.2008.03.006 (https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.jctb.2008.03.006).
Hadwiger, Hugo (1943), "Über eine Klassifikation der Streckenkomplexe", Vierteljschr.
Naturforsch. Ges. Zürich, 88: 133–143.
Kawarabayashi, Ken-ichi, Minors in 7-chromatic graphs, Preprint.
Kawarabayashi, Ken-ichi (2009), "Note on coloring graphs without odd Kk-minors", Journal
of Combinatorial Theory, Series B, 99 (4): 728, doi:10.1016/j.jctb.2008.12.001 (https://doi.or
g/10.1016%2Fj.jctb.2008.12.001). Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series B, in press.
Kawarabayashi, Ken-ichi; Toft, Bjarne (2005), "Any 7-chromatic graph has K7 or K4,4 as a
minor", Combinatorica, 25 (3): 327–353, doi:10.1007/s00493-005-0019-1 (https://doi.org/10.
1007%2Fs00493-005-0019-1).
Kostochka, A. V. (1984), "Lower bound of the Hadwiger number of graphs by their average
degree", Combinatorica, 4 (4): 307–316, doi:10.1007/BF02579141 (https://doi.org/10.100
7%2FBF02579141).
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s://web.archive.org/web/20110718171201/http://dspace.dml.cz/handle/10338.dmlcz/10640
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graphs" (http://www.math.gatech.edu/~thomas/PAP/hadwiger.pdf) (PDF), Combinatorica, 13
(3): 279–361, doi:10.1007/BF01202354 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2FBF01202354).
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