English

Weak oddness as an approximation of oddness and resistance in cubic graphs

Discrete Mathematics 2016-02-10 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

We introduce weak oddness ωw\omega_{\textrm w}, a new measure of uncolourability of cubic graphs, defined as the least number of odd components in an even factor. For every bridgeless cubic graph GG, ρ(G)ωw(G)ω(G)\rho(G)\le\omega_{\textrm w}(G)\le\omega(G), where ρ(G)\rho(G) denotes the resistance of GG and ω(G)\omega(G) denotes the oddness of GG, so this new measure is an approximation of both oddness and resistance. We demonstrate that there are graphs GG satisfying ρ(G)<ωw(G)<ω(G)\rho(G) < \omega_{\textrm w}(G) < \omega(G), and that the difference between any two of those three measures can be arbitrarily large. The construction implies that if we replace a vertex of a cubic graph with a triangle, then its oddness can decrease by an arbitrarily large amount.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1602.02949,
  title  = {Weak oddness as an approximation of oddness and resistance in cubic graphs},
  author = {Robert Lukoťka and Ján Mazák},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1602.02949},
  year   = {2016}
}