Cuts in matchings of 3-connected cubic graphs

We discuss conjectures on Hamiltonicity in cubic graphs (Tait, Barnette, Tutte), on the dichromatic number of planar oriented graphs (Neumann-Lara), and on even graphs in digraphs whose contraction is strongly connected (Hochst\"attler). We show that all of them fit into the same framework related to cuts in matchings. This allows us to find a counterexample to the conjecture of Hochst\"attler and show that the conjecture of Neumann-Lara holds for all planar graphs on at most 26 vertices. Finally, we state a new conjecture on bipartite cubic oriented graphs, that naturally arises in this setting.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, 1 table. Improved expositio

Embedding large subgraphs into dense graphs

What conditions ensure that a graph G contains some given spanning subgraph H? The most famous examples of results of this kind are probably Dirac's theorem on Hamilton cycles and Tutte's theorem on perfect matchings. Perfect matchings are generalized by perfect F-packings, where instead of covering all the vertices of G by disjoint edges, we want to cover G by disjoint copies of a (small) graph F. It is unlikely that there is a characterization of all graphs G which contain a perfect F-packing, so as in the case of Dirac's theorem it makes sense to study conditions on the minimum degree of G which guarantee a perfect F-packing. The Regularity lemma of Szemeredi and the Blow-up lemma of Komlos, Sarkozy and Szemeredi have proved to be powerful tools in attacking such problems and quite recently, several long-standing problems and conjectures in the area have been solved using these. In this survey, we give an outline of recent progress (with our main emphasis on F-packings, Hamiltonicity problems and tree embeddings) and describe some of the methods involved

Vertex covers by monochromatic pieces - A survey of results and problems

This survey is devoted to problems and results concerning covering the vertices of edge colored graphs or hypergraphs with monochromatic paths, cycles and other objects. It is an expanded version of the talk with the same title at the Seventh Cracow Conference on Graph Theory, held in Rytro in September 14-19, 2014.Comment: Discrete Mathematics, 201

A sufficient condition for the existence of an anti-directed 2-factor in a directed graph

Let D be a directed graph with vertex set V and order n. An anti-directed hamiltonian cycle H in D is a hamiltonian cycle in the graph underlying D such that no pair of consecutive arcs in H form a directed path in D. An anti-directed 2-factor in D is a vertex-disjoint collection of anti-directed cycles in D that span V. It was proved in [3] that if the indegree and the outdegree of each vertex of D is greater than (9/16)n then D contains an anti-directed hamilton cycle. In this paper we prove that given a directed graph D, the problem of determining whether D has an anti-directed 2-factor is NP-complete, and we use a proof technique similar to the one used in [3] to prove that if the indegree and the outdegree of each vertex of D is greater than (24/46)n then D contains an anti-directed 2-factor

On the swap-distances of different realizations of a graphical degree sequence

One of the first graph theoretical problems which got serious attention (already in the fifties of the last century) was to decide whether a given integer sequence is equal to the degree sequence of a simple graph (or it is {\em graphical} for short). One method to solve this problem is the greedy algorithm of Havel and Hakimi, which is based on the {\em swap} operation. Another, closely related question is to find a sequence of swap operations to transform one graphical realization into another one of the same degree sequence. This latter problem got particular emphases in connection of fast mixing Markov chain approaches to sample uniformly all possible realizations of a given degree sequence. (This becomes a matter of interest in connection of -- among others -- the study of large social networks.) Earlier there were only crude upper bounds on the shortest possible length of such swap sequences between two realizations. In this paper we develop formulae (Gallai-type identities) for these {\em swap-distance}s of any two realizations of simple undirected or directed degree sequences. These identities improves considerably the known upper bounds on the swap-distances.Comment: to be publishe