The absence of efficient dual pairs of spanning trees in planar graphs

Abstract

A spanning tree T in a finite planar connected graph G determines a dual spanning tree T* in the dual graph G such that T and T* do not intersect. We show that it is not always possible to find T in G, such that the diameters of T and T* are both within a uniform multiplicative constant (independent of G) of the diameters of their ambient graphs.