Turing kernelization for finding long paths and cycles in restricted graph classes

The k-PATH problem asks whether a given undirected graph has a (simple) path of length k. We prove that k-PATH has polynomial-size Turing kernels when restricted to planar graphs, graphs of bounded degree, claw-free graphs, or to K _3,t-minor-free graphs. This means that there is an algorithm that, given a k-PATH instance (G,k) belonging to one of these graph classes, computes its answer in polynomial time when given access to an oracle that solves k-PATH instances of size polynomial in k in a single step. Our techniques also apply to k-CYCLE, which asks for a cycle of length at least k.