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Entanglements (2205.11488v2)
Published 23 May 2022 in math.CO and cs.DM
Abstract: Robertson and Seymour constructed for every graph $G$ a tree-decomposition that efficiently distinguishes all the tangles in $G$. While all previous constructions of these decompositions are either iterative in nature or not canonical, we give an explicit one-step construction that is canonical. The key ingredient is an axiomatisation of 'local properties' of tangles. Generalisations to locally finite graphs and matroids are also discussed.