English

Signed graphs with two negative edges

Combinatorics 2016-04-28 v1

Abstract

The presented paper studies the flow number F(G,σ)F(G,\sigma) of flow-admissible signed graphs (G,σ)(G,\sigma) with two negative edges. We restrict our study to cubic graphs, because for each non-cubic signed graph (G,σ)(G,\sigma) there is a set G(G,σ){\cal G}(G,\sigma) of cubic graphs such that F(G,σ)min{F(H,σH):(H,σH)G(G)}F(G, \sigma) \leq \min \{F(H,\sigma_H) : (H,\sigma_H) \in {\cal G}(G)\}. We prove that F(G,σ)6F(G,\sigma) \leq 6 if (G,σ)(G,\sigma) contains a bridge and F(G,σ)7F(G,\sigma) \leq 7 in general. We prove better bounds, if there is an element (H,σH)(H,\sigma_H) of G(G,σ){\cal G}(G,\sigma) which satisfies some additional conditions. In particular, if HH is bipartite, then F(G,σ)4F(G,\sigma) \leq 4 and the bound is tight. If HH is 3-edge-colorable or critical or if it has a sufficient cyclic edge-connectivity, then F(G,σ)6F(G,\sigma) \leq 6. Furthermore, if Tutte's 5-Flow Conjecture is true, then (G,σ)(G,\sigma) admits a nowhere-zero 6-flow endowed with some strong properties.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1604.08053,
  title  = {Signed graphs with two negative edges},
  author = {Edita Rollová and Michael Schubert and Eckhard Steffen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.08053},
  year   = {2016}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T13:42:26.100Z