English

A new improvement to the Overfull Conjecture

Combinatorics 2025-12-09 v1

Abstract

Let GG be a simple graph with order nn, maximum degree \D(G)\D(G), minimum degree δ(G)\delta(G) and chromatic index χ(G)\chi'(G), respectively. A graph GG is called {\em \D\D-critical} if χ(G)=\D(G)+1\chi'(G)=\D(G)+1 and χ(H)\textlessχ(G)\chi'(H)\textless \chi'(G) for every proper subgraph HH of GG, and GG is overfull if E(G)>Δ(G)n/2\left|E(G)\right|>\Delta(G)\lfloor n/2\rfloor. In 1986, Chetwynd and Hilton proposed the Overfull Conjecture: Every \D\D-critical graph GG with \D(G)\textgreatern3\D(G)\textgreater\frac{n}{3} is overfull. The Overfull Conjecture has many implications, such as that it implies a polynomial-time algorithm for determining the chromatic index of graphs GG with \D(G)\textgreatern3\D(G)\textgreater\frac{n}{3}, and implies several longstanding conjectures in the area of graph edge coloring. Recently, Cao, Chen, Jing and Shan (SIAM J. Discrete Math. 2022) verified the Overfull Conjecture for \D(G)7δ(G)/4(3n17)/4\D(G)-7\delta(G)/4\ge (3n-17)/4. In this paper, we improve it for \D(G)5δ(G)/3(2n7)/3\D(G)-5\delta(G)/3\ge (2n-7)/3.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2512.07044,
  title  = {A new improvement to the Overfull Conjecture},
  author = {Xuli Qi and Chunhui Ge and Yanrui Feng},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.07044},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T08:14:00.866Z