On the size of k-irreducible triangulations

Abstract

A triangulation of a surface is k-irreducible if every non-contractible curve has length at least k and any edge contraction breaks this property. Equivalently, every edge belongs to a non-contractible curve of length k and there are no shorter non-contractible curves. We prove that a k-irreducible triangulation of an orientable surface of genus g has $O(k^{2}g)$ triangles, which is optimal. This is an improvement over the previous best bound $k^{O(k)}{g}^2$ of Gao, Richter and Seymour [Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series B, 1996].

v2: Corrected an error in the treatment of non-orientable surfaces; we no longer claim a bound in that setting