arXiv subjects

Quentin Claus

Publications and source records attributed to Quentin Claus.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

An improved bound on the treewidth of planar graphs excluding a grid minor

We show that every planar graph with no $t \times t$ grid minor has treewidth at most $4t +4$. This improves on the previously best known bound of $\frac{9}{2}t - \frac{11}{2}$, due to Gu and Tamaki (2012), and is within a factor $2$ of optimal. A key step in the proof is showing the following result, which might be of independent interest: Every $2$-connected plane graph $G$ with radius $d$ and faces of size at most $k$ has a tree-decomposition of width at most $\max\{3d+ k+5, 2d+2k+1\}$ such that the vertex set of every face of $G$ is contained in some bag.

math.CO↗

arXiv2026

Erdős-Pósa property of rooted tree minors

Fiorini, Joret, and Wood (2013) showed that tree minors satisfy the so-called Erdős-Pósa property with a linear bound: For every tree $T$ there exists a constant $c \geq 1$ such that, for every graph $G$ and integer $k\geq 0$, either $G$ contains $k$ vertex-disjoint subgraphs each containing a $T$-minor, or $G$ has a set $X$ of at most $c k$ vertices such that $G-X$ has no $T$-minor. In this paper, we prove that the same result remains true if, given a subset $S$ of vertices of $G$, one only considers $T$-minors of $G$ that are rooted in $S$. Here, a $T$-minor is rooted in $S$ if there is a minor-model of $T$ where each branch set contains a vertex from $S$. This result can be seen as a generalization of the classical $S$-Path Theorem of Gallai, which corresponds to the case $T=K_2$. The upper bound on the size of $X$ is best possible up to the value of the constant $c$, and improves on an earlier $O(k^2)$ bound due to Hodor, La, Micek, and Rambaud (2026).

math.CO↗

arXiv2026

Blow-up structure of graphs excluding a tree or an apex-tree as a minor

We prove blow-up structure theorems for graphs excluding a tree or an apex-tree as a minor. First, we show that for every $t$-vertex tree $T$ with $t\geq 3$ and radius $h$, and every graph $G$ excluding $T$ as a minor, there exists a graph $H$ with pathwidth at most $2h-1$ such that $G$ is contained in $H\boxtimes K_{t-2}$ as a subgraph. This improves on a recent theorem of Dujmović, Hickingbotham, Joret, Micek, Morin, and Wood (2024), who proved the same result but with a larger bound on the order of the complete graph in the product. Second, we show that for every $t$-vertex tree $T$ with $t\geq 2$, radius $h$ and maximum degree $d$, and every graph $G$ excluding the apex-tree $T^+$ as a minor, where $T^+$ is the tree obtained by adding a universal vertex to $T$, there exists a graph $H$ with treewidth at most $4h-1$ such that $G$ is contained in $H\boxtimes K_{2(t-1)d}$. The bound on the treewidth of $H$ is best possible up to a factor $2$, and improves on a $2^{h+2}-4$ bound that follows from a recent result of Dujmović, Hickingbotham, Hodor, Joret, La, Micek, Morin, Rambaud, and Wood (2024).

math.CO↗

arXiv2026

Excluding an apex-forest or a fan as quickly as possible

We show that every graph $G$ excluding an apex-forest $H$ as a minor has layered pathwidth at most $|V(H)|-2$, and that every graph $G$ excluding an apex-linear forest (such as a fan) $H$ as a minor has layered treedepth at most $|V(H)|-2$. We further show that both bounds are optimal. These results improve on recent results of Hodor, La, Micek, and Rambaud (2025): The first result improves the previous best-known bound by a multiplicative factor of $2$, while the second strengthens a previous quadratic bound. In addition, we reduce from quadratic to linear the bound on the $S$-focused treedepth $\mathrm{td}(G,S)$ for graphs $G$ with a prescribed set of vertices $S$ excluding models of paths in which every branch set intersects~$S$.

math.CO↗