Abstract
We show that no cubic graphs of order 26 have crossing number larger than 9, which proves a conjecture of Ed Pegg Jr and Geoffrey Exoo that the smallest cubic graphs with crossing number 11 have 28 vertices. This result is achieved by first eliminating all girth 3 graphs from consideration, and then using the recently developed QuickCross heuristic to find drawings with few crossings for each remaining graph. We provide a minimal example of a cubic graph on 28 vertices with crossing number 10, and also exhibit for the first time a cubic graph on 30 vertices with crossing number 12, which we conjecture is minimal.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1713-1721 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Graphs and Combinatorics |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| Early online date | 28 Jun 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Nov 2020 |
Keywords
- Conjecture
- Coxeter graph
- Crossing number
- Cubic graphs
- Levi graph
- QuickCross heuristic
- Tutte–Coxeter graph