Expected number of faces in a random embedding of any graph is at most linear

Abstract

A random two-cell embedding of a given graph $G$ is obtained by choosing a random local rotation around every vertex. We analyse the expected number of faces of such an embedding, which is equivalent to studying its average genus. In 1991, Stahl [5] proved that the expected number of faces in a random embedding of an arbitrary graph of order $n$ is at most $n\log (n)$ . While there are many families of graphs whose expected number of faces is $\Theta (n)$ , none are known where the expected number would be super-linear. This led the authors of [1] to conjecture that there is a linear upper bound. In this note we confirm their conjecture by proving that for any $n$ -vertex multigraph, the expected number of faces in a random two-cell embedding is at most $2n\log (2\mu )$ , where $\mu$ is the maximum edge-multiplicity. This bound is best possible up to a constant factor.