A characterization of $K_{2,4}$-minor-free graphs

Abstract

We provide a complete structural characterization of $K_{2,4}$-minor-free graphs. The $3$-connected $K_{2,4}$-minor-free graphs consist of nine small graphs on at most eight vertices, together with a family of planar graphs that contains $K_4$ and, for each $n\ge 5$, $2n-8$ nonisomorphic graphs of order $n$. To describe the $2$-connected $K_{2,4}$-minor-free graphs we use $xy$-outerplanar graphs, graphs embeddable in the plane with a Hamilton $xy$-path so that all other edges lie on one side of this path. We show that, subject to an appropriate connectivity condition, $xy$-outerplanar graphs are precisely the graphs that have no rooted $K_{2,2}$-minor where $x$ and $y$ correspond to the two vertices on one side of the bipartition of $K_{2,2}$. Each $2$-connected $K_{2,4}$-minor-free graph is then (i) outerplanar, (ii) the union of three $xy$-outerplanar graphs and possibly the edge $xy$, or (iii) obtained from a $3$-connected $K_{2,4}$-minor-free graph by replacing each edge $x_i{y}_i$ in a set $\{x_1{y}_1,x_2{y}_2,\dots ,x_k{y}_k\}$ satisfying a certain condition by an $x_i{y}_i$-outerplanar graph.

20 pages, 15 figures, 2 tables, to appear in SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics