Distinct Distances in Graph Drawings Paz Carmi∗ Vida Dujmovi´c∗ Pat Morin∗ David R. Woody Submitted: Apr 24, 2008; Accepted: Aug 13, 2008; Published: Aug 25, 2008 Mathematics Subject Classification: 05C62 (graph representations) Abstract The distance-number of a graph G is the minimum number of distinct edge- lengths over all straight-line drawings of G in the plane. This definition generalises many well-known concepts in combinatorial geometry. We consider the distance- number of trees, graphs with no K4−-minor, complete bipartite graphs, complete graphs, and cartesian products. Our main results concern the distance-number of graphs with bounded degree. We prove that n-vertex graphs with bounded maximum degree and bounded treewidth have distance-number in (log n). To O conclude such a logarithmic upper bound, both the degree and the treewidth need to be bounded. In particular, we construct graphs with treewidth 2 and polynomial distance-number. Similarly, we prove that there exist graphs with maximum degree 5 and arbitrarily large distance-number. Moreover, as ∆ increases the existential lower bound on the distance-number of ∆-regular graphs tends to Ω(n0:864138). 1 Introduction This paper initiates the study of the minimum number of distinct edge-lengths in a draw- ing of a given graph1. A degenerate drawing of a graph G is a function that maps the ∗School of Computer Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada ( paz,vida,morin @scs.carleton.ca). Research supported by NSERC. f yDepartment ofgMathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia (
[email protected]). Supported by a QEII Research Fellowship.