Large induced subgraph with a given pathwidth in outerplanar graphs

Abstract

A long-standing conjecture by Albertson and Berman in 1979 states that every planar graph of order $n$ has an induced forest with at least $\lceil \frac{n}{2}\rceil$ vertices. As a variant of this conjecture, Chappell conjectured that every planar graph of order $n$ has an induced linear forest with at least $\lceil \frac{4n}{9}\rceil$ vertices. As a partial solution to the conjecture, Pelsmajer in 2004 proved that every outerplanar graph of order $n$ has an induced linear forest with at least $\lceil \frac{4n+2}{7}\rceil$ vertices and this bound is sharp. In this paper, we investigate the order of induced subgraphs with a given pathwidth in outerplanar graphs. The above result of Pelsmajer implies that every outerplanar graph of order $n$ has an induced subgraph with pathwidth at most 1 and at least $\lceil \frac{4n+2}{7}\rceil$ vertices. We extend this to obtain a result on the maximum order of induced subgraphs with a given pathwidth in an outerplanar graph. We also give its upper bound, which generalizes Pelsmajer's construction.