English

Odd covers for complete graphs and complete 3-graphs

Combinatorics 2026-07-08 v1

Abstract

The Graham-Pollak theorem says that one needs at least n1n - 1 complete bipartite graphs to cover each edge of a complete graph KnK_{n} on nn vertices exactly once. The odd cover problem is a parity analogue which seeks the minimum number of complete bipartite graphs, denoted by b2(n)b_2(n), such that each edge of Kn K_n is covered an odd number of times. An odd cover of a complte 3-graph Kn(3)K_n^{(3)} on nn vertices is a family of complete 33-partite 33-graphs such that every triple is covered an odd number of times. Let b3(n)b_3(n) be the minimum size of such a family. The values of b2(n)b_2(n) and b3(n)b_3(n) are determined for some nn in several previous works. In this paper, we first determine the value of b2(n)b_2(n) for all nn, which confirms a conjecture due to Buchanan et al. (JGT, 2026), and then show b3(n+1)=b2(n)b_3(n+1)=b_2(n) by which the value of b3(n)b_3(n) is determined for all nn, that resolves a question posed by Leader and Tan (EJC, 2026).

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.07448,
  title  = {Odd covers for complete graphs and complete 3-graphs},
  author = {Ting Huang and Jiabao Yang and Yaojun Chen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.07448},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

12 pages, 1 figure