English

Three-edge-colouring doublecross cubic graphs

Combinatorics 2017-03-28 v3

Abstract

A graph is apex if there is a vertex whose deletion makes the graph planar, and doublecross if it can be drawn in the plane with only two crossings, both incident with the infinite region in the natural sense. In 1966, Tutte conjectured that every two-edge-connected cubic graph with no Petersen graph minor is three-edge-colourable. With Neil Robertson, two of us showed that this is true in general if it is true for apex graphs and doublecross graphs. In another paper, two of us solved the apex case, but the doublecross case remained open. Here we solve the doublecross case; that is, we prove that every two-edge-connected doublecross cubic graph is three-edge-colourable. The proof method is a variant on the proof of the four-colour theorem.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1411.4352,
  title  = {Three-edge-colouring doublecross cubic graphs},
  author = {Katherine Edwards and Daniel P. Sanders and Paul Seymour and Robin Thomas},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1411.4352},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

16 pages, 1 figure, 1 appendix. Three results in this paper are proved using computers. Please see version 1 for the computer programs and associated data

R2 v1 2026-06-22T07:00:52.380Z