English

Packing cycles in undirected group-labelled graphs

Combinatorics 2024-06-25 v2

Abstract

We prove a refinement of the flat wall theorem of Robertson and Seymour to undirected group-labelled graphs (G,γ)(G,\gamma) where γ\gamma assigns to each edge of an undirected graph GG an element of an abelian group Γ\Gamma. As a consequence, we prove that Γ\Gamma-nonzero cycles (cycles whose edges sum to a non-identity element of Γ\Gamma) satisfy the half-integral Erd\H{o}s-P\'osa property, and we also recover a result of Wollan that, if Γ\Gamma has no element of order two, then Γ\Gamma-nonzero cycles satisfy the Erd\H{o}s-P\'osa property. As another application, we prove that if mm is an odd prime power, then cycles of length modm\ell \mod m satisfy the Erd\H{o}s-P\'osa property for all integers \ell. This partially answers a question of Dejter and Neumann-Lara from 1987 on characterizing all such integer pairs (,m)(\ell,m).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2009.11266,
  title  = {Packing cycles in undirected group-labelled graphs},
  author = {Robin Thomas and Youngho Yoo},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2009.11266},
  year   = {2024}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T18:44:58.299Z