Asymptotic structure. VI. Distant paths across a disc

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Hauptverfasser: Nguyen, Tung, Scott, Alex, Seymour, Paul
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Nguyen, Tung
Scott, Alex
Seymour, Paul
author_facet Nguyen, Tung
Scott, Alex
Seymour, Paul
contents Menger's theorem says that, for $k\ge0$, if $S, T$ are sets of vertices in a graph $G$, then either there are $k + 1$ vertex-disjoint paths between $S$ and $T$, or there is a set X of at most $k$ vertices such that every $S$-$T$ path passes through $X$. The ``coarse Menger conjecture'' proposed a generalization of Menger's theorem for paths that are far apart: for all $k, c$ there exists $\ell$, such that for every graph $G$ and subsets $S, T \subset V (G)$, either there are $k + 1$ paths between $S$ and $T$, pairwise with distance more than $c$, or there is a set $X \subset V (G)$ of at most $k$ vertices such that every $S$-$T$ path has distance at most $\ell$ from $X$. This is known to be false, but may be true if $G$ is planar. Here we show that it is true if $G$ is planar and all vertices in $S \cup T$ are on the infinite region. In this case, we also obtain a linear-time algorithm to test for the existence of $k+ 1$ paths between $S$ and $T$, pairwise with distance more than $c$.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_07174
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Asymptotic structure. VI. Distant paths across a disc
Nguyen, Tung
Scott, Alex
Seymour, Paul
Combinatorics
05C10, 05C12, 05C40
Menger's theorem says that, for $k\ge0$, if $S, T$ are sets of vertices in a graph $G$, then either there are $k + 1$ vertex-disjoint paths between $S$ and $T$, or there is a set X of at most $k$ vertices such that every $S$-$T$ path passes through $X$. The ``coarse Menger conjecture'' proposed a generalization of Menger's theorem for paths that are far apart: for all $k, c$ there exists $\ell$, such that for every graph $G$ and subsets $S, T \subset V (G)$, either there are $k + 1$ paths between $S$ and $T$, pairwise with distance more than $c$, or there is a set $X \subset V (G)$ of at most $k$ vertices such that every $S$-$T$ path has distance at most $\ell$ from $X$. This is known to be false, but may be true if $G$ is planar. Here we show that it is true if $G$ is planar and all vertices in $S \cup T$ are on the infinite region. In this case, we also obtain a linear-time algorithm to test for the existence of $k+ 1$ paths between $S$ and $T$, pairwise with distance more than $c$.
title Asymptotic structure. VI. Distant paths across a disc
topic Combinatorics
05C10, 05C12, 05C40
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.07174