Some snarks are worse than others

Many conjectures and open problems in graph theory can either be reduced to cubic graphs or are directly stated for cubic graphs. Furthermore, it is known that for a lot of problems, a counterexample must be a snark, i.e. a bridgeless cubic graph which is not 3--edge-colourable. In this paper we deal with the fact that the family of potential counterexamples to many interesting conjectures can be narrowed even further to the family ${\cal S}_{\geq 5}$ of bridgeless cubic graphs whose edge set cannot be covered with four perfect matchings. The Cycle Double Cover Conjecture, the Shortest Cycle Cover Conjecture and the Fan-Raspaud Conjecture are examples of statements for which ${\cal S}_{\geq 5}$ is crucial. In this paper, we study parameters which have the potential to further refine ${\cal S}_{\geq 5}$ and thus enlarge the set of cubic graphs for which the mentioned conjectures can be verified. We show that ${\cal S}_{\geq 5}$ can be naturally decomposed into subsets with increasing complexity, thereby producing a natural scale for proving these conjectures. More precisely, we consider the following parameters and questions: given a bridgeless cubic graph, (i) how many perfect matchings need to be added, (ii) how many copies of the same perfect matching need to be added, and (iii) how many 2--factors need to be added so that the resulting regular graph is Class I? We present new results for these parameters and we also establish some strong relations between these problems and some long-standing conjectures.Comment: 27 pages, 16 figure

Critical classes, Kronecker products of spin characters, and the Saxl conjecture

Highlighting the use of critical classes, we consider constituents in Kronecker products, in particular of spin characters of the double covers of the symmetric and alternating groups. We apply results from the spin case to find constituents in Kronecker products of characters of the symmetric groups. Via this tool, we make progress on the Saxl conjecture; this claims that for a triangular number $n$, the square of the irreducible character of the symmetric group $S_n$ labelled by the staircase contains all irreducible characters of $S_n$ as constituents. We find a large number of constituents in this square which were not detected by other methods. Moreover, the investigation of Kronecker products of spin characters inspires a spin variant of Saxl's conjecture.Comment: 17 page

Construction of cycle double covers for certain classes of graphs

We introduce two classes of graphs, Indonesian graphs and $k$-doughnut graphs. Cycle double covers are constructed for these classes. In case of doughnut graphs this is done for the values $k=1,2,3$ and 4