# ALGEBRAIC COMBINATORICS

Treewidth is a lower bound on graph gonality
Algebraic Combinatorics, Volume 3 (2020) no. 4, pp. 941-953.

We prove that the (divisorial) gonality of a finite connected graph is lower bounded by its treewidth. Graphs for which equality holds include the grid graphs and the complete multipartite graphs. We prove that the treewidth lower bound also holds for metric graphs (tropical curves) by constructing for any positive rank divisor on a metric graph a positive rank divisor of the same degree on a subdivision of the underlying combinatorial graph. Finally, we show that the treewidth lower bound also holds for a related notion of gonality defined by Caporaso and for stable gonality as introduced by Cornelissen et al.

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DOI: 10.5802/alco.124
Classification: 05C57,  05C83,  14T05,  14H51
Keywords: Gonality, treewidth, tropical curve, metric graph.
van Dobben de Bruyn, Josse 1; Gijswijt, Dion 2

1 Mathematical Institute Leiden University P.O. Box 9512 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
2 Delft Institute of Applied Mathematics Delft University of Technology Van Mourik Broekmanweg 6 2628 XE Delft, The Netherlands
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van Dobben de Bruyn, Josse; Gijswijt, Dion. Treewidth is a lower bound on graph gonality. Algebraic Combinatorics, Volume 3 (2020) no. 4, pp. 941-953. doi : 10.5802/alco.124. https://alco.centre-mersenne.org/articles/10.5802/alco.124/

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