Given a graph $G$, we define $\textrm{ex}_c(G)$ to be the minimum value of $t$ for which there exists a constant $N(t,G)$ such that every $t$-connected graph with at least $N(t,G)$ vertices contains $G$ as a minor. The value of $\textrm{ex}_c(G)$ is known to be tied to the vertex cover number $\tau(G)$, and in fact $\tau(G)\leq …

Our problem can be described in terms of a two player game, played with the set $\mathcal{S}_n$ of permutations on $\{1,2,\dots,n\}$. First, Player 1 selects a subset $S$ of $\mathcal{S}_n$ and shows it to Player 2. Next, Player 2 selects a permutation $p$ from $\mathcal{S}_n$ as different as possible from the permutations in $S$, and shows it to Player …

Erdős and Pósa proved in 1965 that there is a duality between the maximum size of a packing of cycles and the minimum size of a vertex set hitting all cycles. Such a duality does not hold if we restrict to odd cycles.  However, in 1999, Reed proved an analogue for odd cycles by relaxing packing …

The extremal function $c(H)$ of a graph $H$ is the supremum of densities of graphs not containing $H$ as a minor, where the density of a graph is the ratio of the number of edges to the number of vertices. Myers and Thomason (2005), Norin, Reed, Thomason and Wood (2020), and Thomason and Wales (2019) …

This talk follows on from the recent talk of Pascal Gollin in this seminar series, but will aim to be accessible for newcomers. Erdős and Pósa proved in 1965 that there is a duality between the maximum size of a packing of cycles and the minimum size of a vertex set hitting all cycles. By …

The strong product $G\boxtimes H$ of graphs $G$ and $H$ is the graph on the cartesian product $V(G)\times V(H)$ such that vertices $(v,w)$ and $(x,y)$ are adjacent if and only if $\max\{d_G(v,x),d_H(w,y)\}=1$. Graph product structure theory aims to describe complicated graphs in terms of subgraphs of strong products of simpler graphs. This area of research was initiated …