A coarse Menger theorem for hyperbolic graphs, finitely presented groups, and more

Mathematics > Combinatorics [Submitted on 16 Jun 2026] Title:A coarse Menger theorem for hyperbolic graphs, finitely presented groups, and more View PDF HTML (experimental)Abstract:Menger's theorem is one of the most fundamental results in graph theory. It states that if a graph $G$ does not contain $k$ disjoint paths between two given sets $X$ and $Y$ of vertices in $G$, then there is a set of at most $k-1$ vertices that intersects every path between $X$ and $Y$. Nguyen, Scott, and Seymour gave a counterexample to the conjectured natural coarse variant in which the paths are required to be pairwise at distance at least $d$, and, conversely, there is a set of at most $k-1$ bounded-radius balls intersecting every path between $X$ and $Y$. In other words, the coarse Menger property does not hold in general. We prove that graphs whose cycles space is generated by cycles of bounded length do have the coarse Menger property. As a corollary, we show that many natural graphs and geodesic metric spaces have the coarse Menger property. These include hyperbolic graphs, Cayley graphs of finitely presented groups, planar graphs with bounded face size, and complete Riemannian planes. Submission history From: Sandra Albrechtsen [view email][v1] Tue, 16 Jun 2026 07:10:58 UTC (3,272 KB) Current browse context: math.CO References & Citations Loading... Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Recommenders and Search Tools Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.