English

Two sufficient conditions for graphs to admit path factors

Combinatorics 2026-04-08 v3

Abstract

Let A\mathcal{A} be a set of connected graphs. Then a spanning subgraph AA of GG is called an A\mathcal{A}-factor if each component of AA is isomorphic to some member of A\mathcal{A}. Especially, when every graph in A\mathcal{A} is a path, AA is a path factor. For a positive integer d2d\geq2, we write Pd={Piid}\mathcal{P}_{\geq d}=\{P_i|i\geq d\}. Then a Pd\mathcal{P}_{\geq d}-factor means a path factor in which every component admits at least dd vertices. A graph GG is called a (Pd,m)(\mathcal{P}_{\geq d},m)-factor deleted graph if GEG-E' admits a Pd\mathcal{P}_{\geq d}-factor for any EE(G)E'\subseteq E(G) with E=m|E'|=m. A graph GG is called a (Pd,k)(\mathcal{P}_{\geq d},k)-factor critical graph if GQG-Q has a Pd\mathcal{P}_{\geq d}-factor for any QV(G)Q\subseteq V(G) with Q=k|Q|=k. In this paper, we present two degree conditions for graphs to be (P3,m)(\mathcal{P}_{\geq3},m)-factor deleted graphs and (P3,k)(\mathcal{P}_{\geq3},k)-factor critical graphs. Furthermore, we show that the two results are best possible in some sense.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2305.18148,
  title  = {Two sufficient conditions for graphs to admit path factors},
  author = {Sizhong Zhou and Jiancheng Wu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.18148},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

11 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-28T10:49:20.571Z