1-Planar Unit Distance Graphs with More Edges Than Matchstick Graphs

Abstract

Matchstick graphs are graphs that allow plane embedding with straight edges of equal length. One-planar unit distance graphs are graphs that allow a drawing in the plane in which all edges are straight-line segments of equal length and every edge crosses at most one other edge. The maximum number of edges of a matchstick graph (1-planar unit distance graph) of order n is denoted by u₀(n) (u₁(n), respectively). It is known that u₀(n) = ⌊ 3n-√{12n-3}⌋ holds for every n. At GD'24, Gehér and Tóth proved a slightly weaker upper bound on u₁(n), but noted that no 1-planar unit distance graph G with more than u₀(|V(G)|) vertices was known. They asked if u₁(n) = u₀(n) holds for every n. We give a negative answer to this question in a much stronger way. We show that u₁(n) > u₀(n) for every n ≥ 16135. Furthermore, we show that the gap between u₁(n) and u₀(n) can be arbitrarily large by proving that for n large enough with respect to a constant α < ∜{1/3}, u₁(n)-u₀(n) ≥ α∜{n}.