Connectivity of contraction-critical graphs

Abstract

Contraction-critical graphs came from the study of minimal counterexamples to Hadwiger's conjecture. A graph is $k$-contraction-critical if it is $k$-chromatic, but any proper minor is $(k-1)$-colorable. It is a long-standing result of Mader that $k$-contraction-critical graphs are $7$-connected for $k\ge7$. In this paper, we provide the improvement of Mader's result for small values of $k$. We show that $k$-contraction-critical graphs are $8$-connected for $k\ge17$, $9$-connected for $k\ge29$, and $10$-connected for $k\ge41$. As a corollary of one of our intermediate results, we also prove that every $30$-connected graph is $4$-linked.