Maximizing the Size of Planar Graphs Under Girth Constraints

Michalis Christou1, Costas S. Iliopoulos 2,1, Mirka Miller1,3,4
1King’s College London, London WC2R 2LS, UK
2Digital Ecosystems & Business Intelligence Institute, Curtin University GPO Box U1987 Perth WA 6845, Australia
3Department of Mathematics, University of West Bohemia, Univerzitni 22, 306 14 Pilsen, Czech Republic
4 School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, New South Wales 2308, Australia

Abstract

In 1975, Erdős proposed the problem of determining the maximal number of edges in a graph on \( n \) vertices that contains no triangles or squares. In this paper, we consider a generalized version of the problem, i.e., what is the maximum size, \( ex(n; t) \), of a graph of order \( n \) and girth at least \( t+1 \) (containing no cycles of length less than \( t+1 \)). The set of those extremal \( C_t \)-free graphs is denoted by \( EX(n; t) \). We consider the problem on special types of graphs, such as pseudotrees, cacti, graphs lying in a square grid, Halin, generalized Halin, and planar graphs. We give the extremal cases, some constructions, and we use these results to obtain general lower bounds for the problem in the general case.