120 research outputs found
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 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
is crucial. In this paper, we study parameters which have
the potential to further refine and thus enlarge the set of
cubic graphs for which the mentioned conjectures can be verified. We show that
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
On hypohamiltonian snarks and a theorem of Fiorini
In 2003, Cavicchioli et al. corrected an omission in the statement and proof of Fiorini's theorem from 1983 on hypohamiltonian snarks. However, their version of this theorem contains an unattainable condition for certain cases. We discuss and extend the results of Fiorini and Cavicchioli et al. and present a version of this theorem which is more general in several ways. Using Fiorini's erroneous result, Steffen had shown that hypohamiltonian snarks exist for some orders n >= 10 and each even n >= 92. We rectify Steffen's proof by providing a correct demonstration of a technical lemma on flower snarks, which might be of separate interest. We then strengthen Steffen's theorem to the strongest possible form by determining all orders for which hypohamiltonian snarks exist. This also strengthens a result of Macajova and Skoviera. Finally, we verify a conjecture of Steffen on hypohamiltonian snarks up to 36 vertices
Ban--Linial's Conjecture and treelike snarks
A bridgeless cubic graph is said to have a 2-bisection if there exists a
2-vertex-colouring of (not necessarily proper) such that: (i) the colour
classes have the same cardinality, and (ii) the monochromatic components are
either an isolated vertex or an edge. In 2016, Ban and Linial conjectured that
every bridgeless cubic graph, apart from the well-known Petersen graph, admits
a 2-bisection. In the same paper it was shown that every Class I bridgeless
cubic graph admits such a bisection. The Class II bridgeless cubic graphs which
are critical to many conjectures in graph theory are snarks, in particular,
those with excessive index at least 5, that is, whose edge-set cannot be
covered by four perfect matchings. Moreover, Esperet et al. state that a
possible counterexample to Ban--Linial's Conjecture must have circular flow
number at least 5. The same authors also state that although empirical evidence
shows that several graphs obtained from the Petersen graph admit a 2-bisection,
they can offer nothing in the direction of a general proof. Despite some
sporadic computational results, until now, no general result about snarks
having excessive index and circular flow number both at least 5 has been
proven. In this work we show that treelike snarks, which are an infinite family
of snarks heavily depending on the Petersen graph and with both their circular
flow number and excessive index at least 5, admit a 2-bisection.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure
Hyperbolic polyhedral surfaces with regular faces
We study hyperbolic polyhedral surfaces with faces isometric to regular
hyperbolic polygons satisfying that the total angles at vertices are at least
The combinatorial information of these surfaces is shown to be
identified with that of Euclidean polyhedral surfaces with negative
combinatorial curvature everywhere. We prove that there is a gap between areas
of non-smooth hyperbolic polyhedral surfaces and the area of smooth hyperbolic
surfaces. The numerical result for the gap is obtained for hyperbolic
polyhedral surfaces, homeomorphic to the double torus, whose 1-skeletons are
cubic graphs.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with
arXiv:1804.1103
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