Paper 1, Section II, 17G

Graph Theory
Part II, 2020

(a) The complement of a graph is defined as having the same vertex set as the graph, with vertices being adjacent in the complement if and only if they are not adjacent in the graph.

Show that no planar graph of order greater than 10 has a planar complement.

What is the maximum order of a bipartite graph that has a bipartite complement?

(b) For the remainder of this question, let GG be a connected bridgeless planar graph with n4n \geqslant 4 vertices, ee edges, and containing no circuit of length 4 . Suppose that it is drawn with ff faces, of which tt are 3-sided.

Show that 2e3t+5(ft)2 e \geqslant 3 t+5(f-t). Show further that e3te \geqslant 3 t, and hence f8e/15f \leqslant 8 e / 15.

Deduce that e15(n2)/7e \leqslant 15(n-2) / 7. Is there some nn and some GG for which equality holds? [Hint: consider "slicing the corners off" a dodecahedron.]