Triangle Density and Contractibility

  • Authors:
  • Matthias Kriesell

  • Affiliations:
  • Instititut für Mathematik (A), Universität Hannover, Welfengarten 1, D-30167 Hannover, Germany (e-mail: kriesell@math.uni-hannover.de)

  • Venue:
  • Combinatorics, Probability and Computing
  • Year:
  • 2005

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Abstract

Let $G$ be a noncomplete $k$-connected graph such that the graphs obtained from contracting any edge in $G$ are not $k$-connected, and let $t(G)$ denote the number of triangles in $G$. Thomassen proved $t(G) \geq 1$, which was later improved by Mader to $t(G) \geq \frac{1}{3}|V(G)|$.Here we show $t(G) \geq \frac{2}{3}|V(G)|$ (which is best possible in general).Furthermore it is proved that, for $k \geq 4$, a $k$-connected graph without two disjoint triangles must contain an edge not contained in a triangle whose contraction yields a $k$-connected graph. As an application, for $k \geq 4$ every $k$-connected graph $G$ admits two disjoint induced cycles $C_1,C_2$ such that $G-V(C_1)$ and $G-V(C_2)$ are $(k-3)$-connected.