Nowhere-zero flows on signed eulerian graphs

This paper is devoted to a detailed study of nowhere-zero flows on signed eulerian graphs. We generalise the well-known fact about the existence of nowhere-zero $2$-flows in eulerian graphs by proving that every signed eulerian graph that admits an integer nowhere-zero flow has a nowhere-zero $4$-flow. We also characterise signed eulerian graphs with flow number $2$, $3$, and $4$, as well as those that do not have an integer nowhere-zero flow. Finally, we discuss the existence of nowhere-zero $A$-flows on signed eulerian graphs for an arbitrary abelian group~$A$.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figur

Odd decompositions of eulerian graphs

We prove that an eulerian graph $G$ admits a decomposition into $k$ closed trails of odd length if and only if and it contains at least $k$ pairwise edge-disjoint odd circuits and $k\equiv |E(G)|\pmod{2}$. We conjecture that a connected $2d$-regular graph of odd order with $d\ge 1$ admits a decomposition into $d$ odd closed trails sharing a common vertex and verify the conjecture for $d\le 3$. The case $d=3$ is crucial for determining the flow number of a signed eulerian graph which is treated in a separate paper (arXiv:1408.1703v2). The proof of our conjecture for $d=3$ is surprisingly difficult and calls for the use of signed graphs as a convenient technical tool.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure

Circular flow number of highly edge connected signed graphs

This paper proves that for any positive integer $k$, every essentially $(2k+1)$-unbalanced $(12k-1)$-edge connected signed graph has circular flow number at most $2+\frac 1k$.Comment: 11 page

Classification of Indecomposable Flows of Signed Graphs

An indecomposable flow $f$ on a signed graph $\Sigma$ is a nontrivial integral flow that cannot be decomposed into $f=f_1+f_2$, where $f_1,f_2$ are nontrivial integral flows having the same sign (both $\geq 0$ or both $\leq 0$) at each edge of $\Sigma$. This paper is to classify indecomposable flows into characteristic vectors of circuits and Eulerian cycle-trees --- a class of signed graphs having a kind of tree structure in which all cycles can be viewed as vertices of a tree. Moreover, each indecomposable flow other than circuit characteristic vectors can be further decomposed into a sum of certain half circuit characteristic vectors having the same sign at each edge. The variety of indecomposable flows of signed graphs is much richer than that of ordinary unsigned graphs.Comment: 36 figure

Nowhere-zero flows on signed regular graphs

We study the flow spectrum ${\cal S}(G)$ and the integer flow spectrum $\overline{{\cal S}}(G)$ of signed $(2t+1)$-regular graphs. We show that if $r \in {\cal S}(G)$, then $r = 2+\frac{1}{t}$ or $r \geq 2 + \frac{2}{2t-1}$. Furthermore, $2 + \frac{1}{t} \in {\cal S}(G)$ if and only if $G$ has a $t$-factor. If $G$ has a 1-factor, then $3 \in \overline{{\cal S}}(G)$, and for every $t \geq 2$, there is a signed $(2t+1)$-regular graph $(H,\sigma)$ with $3 \in \overline{{\cal S}}(H)$ and $H$ does not have a 1-factor. If $G$ $(\not = K_2^3)$ is a cubic graph which has a 1-factor, then $\{3,4\} \subseteq {\cal S}(G) \cap \overline{{\cal S}}(G)$. Furthermore, the following four statements are equivalent: (1) $G$ has a 1-factor. (2) $3 \in {\cal S}(G)$. (3) $3 \in \overline{{\cal S}}(G)$. (4) $4 \in \overline{{\cal S}}(G)$. There are cubic graphs whose integer flow spectrum does not contain 5 or 6, and we construct an infinite family of bridgeless cubic graphs with integer flow spectrum $\{3,4,6\}$. We show that there are signed graphs where the difference between the integer flow number and the flow number is greater than or equal to 1, disproving a conjecture of Raspaud and Zhu. The paper concludes with a proof of Bouchet's 6-flow conjecture for Kotzig-graphs.Comment: 24 pages, 4 figures; final version; to appear in European J. Combinatoric

Shorter signed circuit covers of graphs

A signed circuit is a minimal signed graph (with respect to inclusion) that admits a nowhere-zero flow. We show that each flow-admissible signed graph on $m$ edges can be covered by signed circuits of total length at most $(3+2/3)\cdot m$, improving a recent result of Cheng et al. [manuscript, 2015]. To obtain this improvement we prove several results on signed circuit covers of trees of Eulerian graphs, which are connected signed graphs such that removing all bridges results in a collection of Eulerian graphs.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figure

Shortest circuit covers of signed graphs

A shortest circuit cover ${\cal F}$ of a bridgeless graph $G$ is a family of circuits that covers every edge of $G$ and is of minimum total length. The total length of a shortest circuit cover ${\cal F}$ of $G$ is denoted by $SCC(G)$. For ordinary graphs (graphs without sign), the subject of shortest circuit cover is closely related to some mainstream areas, such as, Tutte's integer flow theory, circuit double cover conjecture, Fulkerson conjecture, and others. For signed graphs $G$, it is proved recently by M\'a\v{c}ajov\'a, Raspaud, Rollov\'a and \v{S}koviera that $SCC(G) \leq 11|E|$ if $G$ is s-bridgeless, and $SCC(G) \leq 9|E|$ if $G$ is $2$-edge-connected. In this paper this result is improved as follows, $$SCC(G) ~ \leq ~ |E| + 3|V| +z$$ where $z ~=~ \min \{ \frac{2}{3}|E|+\frac{4}{3}\epsilon_N-7,~ |V| + 2\epsilon_N -8\}$ and $\epsilon_N$ is the negativeness of $G$. The above upper bound can be further reduced if $G$ is $2$-edge-connected with even negativeness

Orientations, lattice polytopes, and group arrangements II: Modular and integral flow polynomials of graphs

We study modular and integral flow polynomials of graphs by means of subgroup arrangements and lattice polytopes. We introduce an Eulerian equivalence relation on orientations, flow arrangements, and flow polytopes; and we apply the theory of Ehrhart polynomials to obtain properties of modular and integral flow polynomials. The emphasis is on the geometrical treatment through subgroup arrangements and Ehrhart polynomials. Such viewpoint leads to a reciprocity law for the modular flow polynomial, which gives rise to an interpretation on the values of the modular flow polynomial at negative integers, and answers a question by Beck and Zaslavsky.Comment: 24 pages, 2 figure

Dual complementary polynomials of graphs and combinatorial interpretation on the values of the Tutte polynomial at positive integers

We introduce a modular (integral) complementary polynomial $\kappa(G;x,y)$ (\kappa_{\mathbbm z}(G;x,y)) of two variables of a graph $G$ by counting the number of modular (integral) complementary tension-flows (CTF) of $G$ with an orientation $\epsilon$. We study these polynomials by further introducing a cut-Eulerian equivalence relation on orientations and geometric structures such as the complementary open lattice polyhedron \Delta_\textsc{ctf}(G,\epsilon), the complementary open 0-1 polytope \Delta^+_\textsc{ctf}(G,\epsilon), and the complementary open lattice polytopes \Delta^\rho_\textsc{ctf}(G,\epsilon) with respect to orientations $\rho$. The polynomial $\kappa(G;x,y)$ (\kappa_{\mathbbm z}(G;x,y)) is a common generalization of the modular (integral) tension polynomial $\tau(G,x)$ (\tau_\mathbbm{z}(G,x)) and the modular (integral) flow polynomial $\phi(G,y)$ (\phi_\mathbbm{z}(G,y)), and can be decomposed into a sum of product Ehrhart polynomials of complementary open 0-1 polytopes \Delta^+_\textsc{ctf}(G,\rho). There are dual complementary polynomials $\bar\kappa(G;x,y)$ and \bar\kappa_{\mathbbm z}(G;x,y), dual to $\kappa$ and \kappa_{\mathbbm z} respectively, in the sense that the lattice-point counting to the Ehrhart polynomials is taken inside a topological sum of the dilated closed polytopes \bar\Delta^+_\textsc{ctf}(G,\rho). It turns out that the polynomial $\bar\kappa(G;x,y)$ is Whitney's rank generating polynomial $R_G(x,y)$, which gives rise to a combinatorial interpretation on the values of the Tutte polynomial $T_G(x,y)$ at positive integers. In particular, some special values of \kappa_\mathbbm{z} and \bar\kappa_\mathbbm{z} ($\kappa$ and $\bar\kappa$) count the number of certain special kinds (of equivalence classes) of orientations.Comment: 28 pages, 3 figure

Characteristic flows on signed graphs and short circuit covers

We generalise to signed graphs a classical result of Tutte [Canad. J. Math. 8 (1956), 13--28] stating that every integer flow can be expressed as a sum of characteristic flows of circuits. In our generalisation, the r\^ole of circuits is taken over by signed circuits of a signed graph which occur in two types -- either balanced circuits or pairs of disjoint unbalanced circuits connected with a path intersecting them only at its ends. As an application of this result we show that a signed graph $G$ admitting a nowhere-zero $k$-flow has a covering with signed circuits of total length at most $2(k-1)|E(G)|$.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure