Complete Minors in Complements of Non-Separating Planar Graphs

Abstract

We prove that the complement of any non-separating planar graph of order $2n-3$ contains a $K_n$ minor, and argue that the order $2n-3$ is lowest possible with this property. To illustrate the necessity of the non-separating hypothesis, we give an example of a planar graph of order 11 whose complement does not contain a $K_7$ minor. We argue that the complements of planar graphs of order 11 are intrinsically knotted. We compute the Hadwiger numbers of complements of wheel graphs.