Sandwiching saturation number of fullerene graphs

The saturation number of a graph $G$ is the cardinality of any smallest maximal matching of $G$, and it is denoted by $s(G)$. Fullerene graphs are cubic planar graphs with exactly twelve 5-faces; all the other faces are hexagons. They are used to capture the structure of carbon molecules. Here we show that the saturation number of fullerenes on $n$ vertices is essentially $n/3$

On the Strong Parity Chromatic Number

International audienceA vertex colouring of a 2-connected plane graph G is a strong parity vertex colouring if for every face f and each colour c, the number of vertices incident with f coloured by c is either zero or odd. Czap et al. [Discrete Math. 311 (2011) 512-520] proved that every 2-connected plane graph has a proper strong parity vertex colouring with at most 118 colours. In this paper we improve this upper bound for some classes of plane graphs

Disjoint odd circuits in a bridgeless cubic graph can be quelled by a single perfect matching

Let $G$ be a bridgeless cubic graph. The Berge-Fulkerson Conjecture (1970s) states that $G$ admits a list of six perfect matchings such that each edge of $G$ belongs to exactly two of these perfect matchings. If answered in the affirmative, two other recent conjectures would also be true: the Fan-Raspaud Conjecture (1994), which states that $G$ admits three perfect matchings such that every edge of $G$ belongs to at most two of them; and a conjecture by Mazzuoccolo (2013), which states that $G$ admits two perfect matchings whose deletion yields a bipartite subgraph of $G$. It can be shown that given an arbitrary perfect matching of $G$, it is not always possible to extend it to a list of three or six perfect matchings satisfying the statements of the Fan-Raspaud and the Berge-Fulkerson conjectures, respectively. In this paper, we show that given any $1^+$-factor $F$ (a spanning subgraph of $G$ such that its vertices have degree at least 1) and an arbitrary edge $e$ of $G$, there always exists a perfect matching $M$ of $G$ containing $e$ such that $G\setminus (F\cup M)$ is bipartite. Our result implies Mazzuoccolo's conjecture, but not only. It also implies that given any collection of disjoint odd circuits in $G$, there exists a perfect matching of $G$ containing at least one edge of each circuit in this collection.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure

Three-cuts are a charm: acyclicity in 3-connected cubic graphs

Let $G$ be a bridgeless cubic graph. In 2023, the three authors solved a conjecture (also known as the $S_4$-Conjecture) made by Mazzuoccolo in 2013: there exist two perfect matchings of $G$ such that the complement of their union is a bipartite subgraph of $G$. They actually show that given any $1^+$-factor $F$ (a spanning subgraph of $G$ such that its vertices have degree at least 1) and an arbitrary edge $e$ of $G$, there exists a perfect matching $M$ of $G$ containing $e$ such that $G\setminus (F\cup M)$ is bipartite. This is a step closer to comprehend better the Fan--Raspaud Conjecture and eventually the Berge--Fulkerson Conjecture. The $S_4$-Conjecture, now a theorem, is also the weakest assertion in a series of three conjectures made by Mazzuoccolo in 2013, with the next stronger statement being: there exist two perfect matchings of $G$ such that the complement of their union is an acyclic subgraph of $G$. Unfortunately, this conjecture is not true: Jin, Steffen, and Mazzuoccolo later showed that there exists a counterexample admitting 2-cuts. Here we show that, despite of this, every cyclically 3-edge-connected cubic graph satisfies this second conjecture.Comment: 21 pages, 12 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2204.1002

On the Strong Parity Chromatic Number

International audienceA vertex colouring of a 2-connected plane graph G is a strong parity vertex colouring if for every face f and each colour c, the number of vertices incident with f coloured by c is either zero or odd. Czap et al. [Discrete Math. 311 (2011) 512-520] proved that every 2-connected plane graph has a proper strong parity vertex colouring with at most 118 colours. In this paper we improve this upper bound for some classes of plane graphs

Fractional colorings of cubic graphs with large girth

International audienceWe show that every (sub)cubic n-vertex graph with sufficiently large girth has fractional chromatic number at most 2.2978, which implies that it contains an independent set of size at least 0.4352n. Our bound on the independence number is valid for random cubic graphs as well, as it improves existing lower bounds on the maximum cut in cubic graphs with large girth

Facial parity edge colouring

International audienceA facial parity edge colouring of a connected bridgeless plane graph is an edge colouring in which no two face-adjacent edges (consecutive edges of a facial walk of some face) receive the same colour, in addition, for each face α and each colour c, either no edge or an odd number of edges incident with α is coloured with c. From Vizing's theorem it follows that every 3-connected plane graph has a such colouring with at most Δ* + 1 colours, where Δ* is the size of the largest face. In this paper we prove that any connected bridgeless plane graph has a facial parity edge colouring with at most 92 colours

A superlinear bound on the number of perfect matchings in cubic bridgeless graphs

Lovasz and Plummer conjectured in the 1970's that cubic bridgeless graphs have exponentially many perfect matchings. This conjecture has been verified for bipartite graphs by Voorhoeve in 1979, and for planar graphs by Chudnovsky and Seymour in 2008, but in general only linear bounds are known. In this paper, we provide the first superlinear bound in the general case.Comment: 54 pages v2: a short (missing) proof of Lemma 10 was adde