On topological graphs with at most four crossings per edge

Abstract

We show that if a graph $G$ with $n \geq 3$ vertices can be drawn in the plane such that each of its edges is involved in at most four crossings, then $G$ has at most $6n-12$ edges. This settles a conjecture of Pach, Radoičić, Tardos, and Tóth, and yields a better bound for the famous Crossing Lemma: The crossing number, $\mbox{cr}(G)$, of a (not too sparse) graph $G$ with $n$ vertices and $m$ edges is at least $c\frac{m^3}{n^2}$, where $c > 1/29$. This bound is known to be tight, apart from the constant $c$ for which the previous best lower bound was $1/31.1$. As another corollary we obtain some progress on the Albertson conjecture: Albertson conjectured that if the chromatic number of a graph $G$ is $r$, then $\mbox{cr}(G) \geq \mbox{cr}(K_r)$. This was verified by Albertson, Cranston, and Fox for $r \leq 12$, and for $r \leq 16$ by Barát and Tóth. Our results imply that Albertson conjecture holds for $r \leq 18$.