12 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
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
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
NP-Completeness of Perfect Matching Index of Cubic Graphs
The perfect matching index of a cubic graph G, denoted by ?(G), is the smallest number of perfect matchings needed to cover all the edges of G; it is correctly defined for every bridgeless cubic graph. The value of ?(G) is always at least 3, and if G has no 3-edge-colouring, then ?(G) ? 4. On the other hand, a long-standing conjecture of Berge suggests that ?(G) never exceeds 5. It was proved by Esperet and Mazzuoccolo [J. Graph Theory 77 (2014), 144-157] that it is NP-complete to decide for a 2-connected cubic graph whether ?(G) ? 4. A disadvantage of the proof (noted by the authors) is that the constructed graphs have 2-cuts. We show that small cuts can be avoided and that the problem remains NP-complete even for nontrivial snarks - cyclically 4-edge-connected cubic graphs of girth at least 5 with no 3-edge-colouring. Our proof significantly differs from the one due to Esperet and Mazzuoccolo in that it combines nowhere-zero flow methods with elements of projective geometry, without referring to perfect matchings explicitly
An equivalent formulation of the Fan-Raspaud Conjecture and related problems
In 1994, it was conjectured by Fan and Raspaud that every simple bridgeless cubic graph has three perfect matchings whose intersection is empty. In this paper we answer a question recently proposed by Mkrtchyan and Vardanyan, by giving an equivalent formulation of the Fan-Raspaud Conjecture. We also study a possibly weaker conjecture originally proposed by the first author, which states that in every simple bridgeless cubic graph there exist two perfect matchings such that the complement of their union is a bipartite graph. Here, we show that this conjecture can be equivalently stated using a variant of Petersen-colourings, we prove it for graphs having oddness at most four and we give a natural extension to bridgeless cubic multigraphs and to certain cubic graphs having bridges
An equivalent formulation of the Fan-Raspaud Conjecture and related problems
In 1994, it was conjectured by Fan and Raspaud that every simple bridgeless cubic
graph has three perfect matchings whose intersection is empty. In this paper we answer
a question recently proposed by Mkrtchyan and Vardanyan, by giving an equivalent formulation of the Fan-Raspaud Conjecture. We also study a possibly weaker conjecture
originally proposed by the first author, which states that in every simple bridgeless cubic
graph there exist two perfect matchings such that the complement of their union is a bipartite graph. Here, we show that this conjecture can be equivalently stated using a variant of
Petersen-colourings, we prove it for graphs having oddness at most four and we give a natural extension to bridgeless cubic multigraphs and to certain cubic graphs having bridges.peer-reviewe
Treelike snarks
V článku studujeme grafy typu snark, jejichž hrany se nedají pokrýt méně než 5 perfektními párováními. Esperet a Mazzuoccolo našli nekonečnou třídu takových grafů a zobecnili tak příklad zkonstruovaný Hägglundem. Ukážeme konstrukci jiné nekonečné třídy, získané zobecněním v odlišném směru. Důkaz, že tato třída má požadovanou vlastnost, používá prohledávání pomocí počítače. Dále ukazujeme, že grafy z této třídy (říkáme jim stromovité grafy typu snark) mají cirkulární tokové číslo a mají dvojité pokrytí 5 cykly.We study snarks whose edges cannot be covered by fewer than five perfect matchings. Esperet and Mazzuoccolo found an infinite family of such snarks, generalising an example provided by Hägglund. We construct another infinite family, arising from a generalisation in a different direction. The proof that this family has the requested property is computer-assisted. In addition, we prove that the snarks from this family (we call them \emph{treelike snarks}) have circular flow number and admit a 5-cycle double cover