A construction for a counterexample to the pseudo 2-factor isomorphic graph conjecture

A graph $G$ admiting a $2$-factor is \textit{pseudo $2$-factor isomorphic} if the parity of the number of cycles in all its $2$-factors is the same. In [M. Abreu, A.A. Diwan, B. Jackson, D. Labbate and J. Sheehan. Pseudo $2$-factor isomorphic regular bipartite graphs. Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series B, 98(2) (2008), 432-444.] some of the authors of this note gave a partial characterisation of pseudo $2$-factor isomorphic bipartite cubic graphs and conjectured that $K_{3,3}$, the Heawood graph and the Pappus graph are the only essentially $4$-edge-connected ones. In [J. Goedgebeur. A counterexample to the pseudo $2$-factor isomorphic graph conjecture. Discr. Applied Math., 193 (2015), 57-60.] Jan Goedgebeur computationally found a graph $\mathscr{G}$ on $30$ vertices which is pseudo $2$-factor isomorphic cubic and bipartite, essentially $4$-edge-connected and cyclically $6$-edge-connected, thus refuting the above conjecture. In this note, we describe how such a graph can be constructed from the Heawood graph and the generalised Petersen graph $GP(8,3)$, which are the Levi graphs of the Fano $7_3$ configuration and the M\"obius-Kantor $8_3$ configuration, respectively. Such a description of $\mathscr{G}$ allows us to understand its automorphism group, which has order $144$, using both a geometrical and a graph theoretical approach simultaneously. Moreover we illustrate the uniqueness of this graph

Irreducible pseudo 2-factor isomorphic cubic bipartite graphs

A bipartite graph is {\em pseudo 2--factor isomorphic} if all its 2--factors have the same parity of number of circuits. In \cite{ADJLS} we proved that the only essentially 4--edge-connected pseudo 2--factor isomorphic cubic bipartite graph of girth 4 is $K_{3,3}$, and conjectured \cite[Conjecture 3.6]{ADJLS} that the only essentially 4--edge-connected cubic bipartite graphs are $K_{3,3}$, the Heawood graph and the Pappus graph. There exists a characterization of symmetric configurations $n_3$ %{\bf decide notation and how to use it in the rest of the paper} due to Martinetti (1886) in which all symmetric configurations $n_3$ can be obtained from an infinite set of so called {\em irreducible} configurations \cite{VM}. The list of irreducible configurations has been completed by Boben \cite{B} in terms of their {\em irreducible Levi graphs}. In this paper we characterize irreducible pseudo 2--factor isomorphic cubic bipartite graphs proving that the only pseudo 2--factor isomorphic irreducible Levi graphs are the Heawood and Pappus graphs. Moreover, the obtained characterization allows us to partially prove the above Conjecture

On the Existence of General Factors in Regular Graphs

Let $G$ be a graph, and $H\colon V(G)\to 2^\mathbb{N}$ a set function associated with $G$. A spanning subgraph $F$ of $G$ is called an $H$-factor if the degree of any vertex $v$ in $F$ belongs to the set $H(v)$. This paper contains two results on the existence of $H$-factors in regular graphs. First, we construct an $r$-regular graph without some given $H^*$-factor. In particular, this gives a negative answer to a problem recently posed by Akbari and Kano. Second, by using Lov\'asz's characterization theorem on the existence of $(g, f)$-factors, we find a sharp condition for the existence of general $H$-factors in $\{r, r+1\}$-graphs, in terms of the maximum and minimum of $H$. The result reduces to Thomassen's theorem for the case that $H(v)$ consists of the same two consecutive integers for all vertices $v$, and to Tutte's theorem if the graph is regular in addition.Comment: 10 page

Vertex-Coloring Edge-Weighting of Bipartite Graphs with Two Edge Weights

Let $G$ be a graph and $\mathcal {S}$ be a subset of $Z$. A vertex-coloring $\mathcal {S}$-edge-weighting of $G$ is an assignment of weight $s$ by the elements of $\mathcal {S}$ to each edge of $G$ so that adjacent vertices have different sums of incident edges weights. It was proved that every 3-connected bipartite graph admits a vertex-coloring $\{1,2\}$-edge-weighting (Lu, Yu and Zhang, (2011) \cite{LYZ}). In this paper, we show that the following result: if a 3-edge-connected bipartite graph $G$ with minimum degree $\delta$ contains a vertex $u\in V(G)$ such that $d_G(u)=\delta$ and $G-u$ is connected, then $G$ admits a vertex-coloring $\mathcal {S}$-edge-weighting for $\mathcal {S}\in \{\{0,1\},\{1,2\}\}$. In particular, we show that every 2-connected and 3-edge-connected bipartite graph admits a vertex-coloring $\mathcal {S}$-edge-weighting for $\mathcal {S}\in \{\{0,1\},\{1,2\}\}$. The bound is sharp, since there exists a family of infinite bipartite graphs which are 2-connected and do not admit vertex-coloring $\{1,2\}$-edge-weightings or vertex-coloring $\{0,1\}$-edge-weightings.Comment: In this paper, we show that every 2-connected and 3-edge-connected bipartite graph admits a vertex-coloring S-edge-weighting for S\in {{0,1},{1,2}