English

Gallai's path decomposition conjecture for Cartesian product of graphs

Combinatorics 2023-10-18 v1

Abstract

Let GG be a graph of order nn. A path decomposition P\mathcal{P} of GG is a collection of edge-disjoint paths that covers all the edges of GG. Let p(G)p(G) denote the minimum number of paths needed in a path decomposition of GG. Gallai conjectured that if GG is connected, then p(G)n2p(G)\leq \lceil\frac{n}{2}\rceil. Let no(G)n_o(G) to denote the number of vertices with odd degree in GG. Lov\'{a}sz proved that if GG is a connected graph with all vertices having degree odd, i.e. no(G)=nn_o(G)=n, then p(G)=n2p(G)=\frac n 2. In this paper, we prove that if GG is a connected graph of order m2m\geq 2 with p(G)=no(G)2p(G)=\frac{n_o(G)}{2} and HH is a connected graph of order nn, then p(GH)mn2p(G\Box H)\leq\frac{mn}{2}. Furthermore, we prove that p(G)=no(G)2p(G)=\frac{n_o(G)}{2}, if one of the following is hold: (\romannumeral1) GG is a tree; (\romannumeral2) G=PnTG=P_n\Box T, where n4n\geq 4 and TT is a tree; (\romannumeral3) G=PnHG=P_n\Box H, where HH is an even graph.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2310.11189,
  title  = {Gallai's path decomposition conjecture for Cartesian product of graphs},
  author = {Xiaohong Chen and Baoyindureng Wu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.11189},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

12 pages, 4 figures