139 research outputs found
Smallest snarks with oddness 4 and cyclic connectivity 4 have order 44
The family of snarks -- connected bridgeless cubic graphs that cannot be
3-edge-coloured -- is well-known as a potential source of counterexamples to
several important and long-standing conjectures in graph theory. These include
the cycle double cover conjecture, Tutte's 5-flow conjecture, Fulkerson's
conjecture, and several others. One way of approaching these conjectures is
through the study of structural properties of snarks and construction of small
examples with given properties. In this paper we deal with the problem of
determining the smallest order of a nontrivial snark (that is, one which is
cyclically 4-edge-connected and has girth at least 5) of oddness at least 4.
Using a combination of structural analysis with extensive computations we prove
that the smallest order of a snark with oddness at least 4 and cyclic
connectivity 4 is 44. Formerly it was known that such a snark must have at
least 38 vertices [J. Combin. Theory Ser. B 103 (2013), 468--488] and one such
snark on 44 vertices was constructed by Lukot'ka et al. [Electron. J. Combin.
22 (2015), #P1.51]. The proof requires determining all cyclically
4-edge-connected snarks on 36 vertices, which extends the previously compiled
list of all such snarks up to 34 vertices [J. Combin. Theory Ser. B, loc.
cit.]. As a by-product, we use this new list to test the validity of several
conjectures where snarks can be smallest counterexamples.Comment: 21 page
The Cost of Perfection for Matchings in Graphs
Perfect matchings and maximum weight matchings are two fundamental
combinatorial structures. We consider the ratio between the maximum weight of a
perfect matching and the maximum weight of a general matching. Motivated by the
computer graphics application in triangle meshes, where we seek to convert a
triangulation into a quadrangulation by merging pairs of adjacent triangles, we
focus mainly on bridgeless cubic graphs. First, we characterize graphs that
attain the extreme ratios. Second, we present a lower bound for all bridgeless
cubic graphs. Third, we present upper bounds for subclasses of bridgeless cubic
graphs, most of which are shown to be tight. Additionally, we present tight
bounds for the class of regular bipartite graphs
Normal 6-edge-colorings of some bridgeless cubic graphs
In an edge-coloring of a cubic graph, an edge is poor or rich, if the set of
colors assigned to the edge and the four edges adjacent it, has exactly five or
exactly three distinct colors, respectively. An edge is normal in an
edge-coloring if it is rich or poor in this coloring. A normal
-edge-coloring of a cubic graph is an edge-coloring with colors such
that each edge of the graph is normal. We denote by the smallest
, for which admits a normal -edge-coloring. Normal edge-colorings
were introduced by Jaeger in order to study his well-known Petersen Coloring
Conjecture. It is known that proving for every bridgeless
cubic graph is equivalent to proving Petersen Coloring Conjecture. Moreover,
Jaeger was able to show that it implies classical conjectures like Cycle Double
Cover Conjecture and Berge-Fulkerson Conjecture. Recently, two of the authors
were able to show that any simple cubic graph admits a normal
-edge-coloring, and this result is best possible. In the present paper, we
show that any claw-free bridgeless cubic graph, permutation snark, tree-like
snark admits a normal -edge-coloring. Finally, we show that any bridgeless
cubic graph admits a -edge-coloring such that at least edges of are normal.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with
arXiv:1804.0944
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