The Local Structure Theorem for Graph Minors with finite index

Abstract

The Local Structure Theorem (LST) for Graph Minors roughly states that for every $H$-minor-free graph $G$ that contains a sufficiently large wall $W$, there is a small vertex subset $A,$ whose removal yields a graph that admits an "almost embedding" $δ$ on a surface $Σ$ on which $H$ does not embed. By almost embedding, we mean that there exists a hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$ whose vertex set is a subset of the vertex set of $G - A$ and an embedding of $\mathcal{H}$ on $Σ$ such that the drawing of each hyperedge of $\mathcal{H}$ corresponds to a cell of $δ,$ the boundary of each cell intersects only the vertices of the corresponding hyperedge, and all remaining vertices and edges of $G - A$ are drawn in the interior of cells. The cells corresponding to hyperedges of arity at least $4$, called vortices, are few in number and have small "depth", while "most" of the wall $W$ is disjoint from the vortices and is "grounded" in the embedding $δ$. Suppose that the subgraphs drawn inside each of the non-vortex cells are equipped with some finite index, i.e., each such cell is assigned a color from a finite set. We prove a version of the LST in which the set $C$ of colors assigned to the non-vortex cells exhibits "large" bidimensionality: $G - A$ contains a minor model of a large grid $Γ$ such that, for every color $α\in C$, the model of each vertex of $Γ$ contains the subgraph drawn within an $α$-colored cell. Moreover, $Γ$ can be chosen in a way that is "well-connected" to the original wall $W$.