Saturated Partial Embeddings of Maximal Planar Graphs

TL;DR

This paper studies saturation concepts in maximal planar graphs, establishing bounds for the ratios of saturated subgraphs with and without vertex labels, revealing new extremal properties of such graphs.

Contribution

It introduces and bounds two notions of saturation for maximal planar graphs, providing almost tight bounds and constructions for extremal saturation ratios.

Findings

Labeled plane-saturation ratio upper bound: (n+7)/(3n-6) for n ≥ 47

Existence of graphs with labeled saturation ratio ≥ (n+2)/(3n-6) for n ≥ 5

Unlabeled plane-saturation ratio at least 1/2 for large n

Abstract

We investigate two notions of saturation for partial planar embeddings of maximal planar graphs. Let $G = (V, E) $ be a vertex-labeled maximal planar graph on $ n $ vertices, which by definition has $3n - 6$ edges. We say that a labeled plane graph $H = (V, E')$ with $E' \subseteq E$ is a \emph{labeled plane-saturated subgraph} of $G$ if no edge in $E \setminus E'$ can be added to $H$ in a manner that preserves vertex labels, without introducing a crossing. The \emph{labeled plane-saturation ratio} $lpsr(G)$ is defined as the minimum value of $\frac{e(H)}{e(G)}$ over all such $H$. We establish almost tight bounds for $lpsr(G)$, showing $lpsr(G) \leq \frac{n+7}{3n-6}$ for $n \geq 47$, and constructing a maximal planar graph $G$ with $lpsr(G) \geq \frac{n+2}{3n-6}$ for each $n\ge 5$. Dropping vertex labels, a \emph{plane-saturated subgraph} is defined as a plane subgraph $H\subseteq G$ where adding any additional edge to the drawing either introduces a crossing or causes the resulting graph to no longer be a subgraph of $G$. The \emph{plane-saturation ratio} $psr(G)$ is defined as the minimum value of $\frac{E(H)}{E(G)}$ over all such $H$. For all sufficiently large $n$, we demonstrate the existence of a maximal planar graph $G$ with $psr(G) \geq \frac{\frac{3}{2}n - 3}{3n - 6} = \frac{1}{2}$.