Fan lemma 2026-10-03
In a -connected graph, for a vertex and a set of at least other vertices, there are paths from to distinct vertices of that meet only at . This follows from the Set version of Menger theorem by separating from .
Let
be the terminal set, and let be the vertex set of the given complete graph . Any vertex set meeting every - path has size at least : if , choose and . Since is -connected, is connected, so it contains a - path avoiding , a contradiction.
The Set version of Menger theorem therefore gives pairwise vertex-disjoint - paths. Truncate them at their first and last vertices in . Since both sets have vertices, every terminal is the endpoint of one path and the other endpoints are distinct vertices of . Denote the path from a terminal to its clique endpoint by , and call that endpoint .
For each , the clique contains the edge . Concatenating
gives an - path in a graph. The linkage paths are mutually vertex-disjoint, their clique endpoints are all distinct, and the joining clique edges pair those endpoints without introducing a new vertex. The resulting paths are therefore mutually vertex-disjoint. In particular, under the stated clique hypothesis, the -connected graph is -linked for these terminals.