Special Issue on Graph Drawing Beyond Planarity
Saturated simple and 2-simple topological graphs with few edges
Péter Hajnal, Alexander Igamberdiev, Günter Rote, and André Schulz
Vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 117-138, 2018. Regular paper.
Abstract A simple topological graph is a topological graph in which any two edges have at most one common point, which is either their common endpoint or a proper crossing. More generally, in a $k$-simple topological graph, every pair of edges has at most $k$ common points of this kind. We construct saturated simple and 2-simple graphs with few edges. These are $k$-simple graphs in which no further edge can be added. We improve the previous upper bounds of Kynčl, Pach, Radoičić, and Tóth [Comput. Geom., 48, 2015] and show that there are saturated simple graphs on $n$ vertices with only $7n$ edges and saturated 2-simple graphs on $n$ vertices with $14.5n$ edges. As a consequence, there is a $k$-simple graph (for a general $k$), which can be saturated using $14.5n$ edges, while previous upper bounds suggested $17.5n$ edges. We also construct saturated simple and 2-simple graphs that have some vertices with low degree.
Submitted: February 2017.
Reviewed: June 2017.
Revised: June 2017.
Accepted: July 2017.
Final: December 2017.
Published: January 2018.
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