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Related papers: A note on nowhere-zero 3-flow and Z_3-connectivity

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A 1983 conjecture of Bouchet states that every flow-admissible signed graph has a nowhere-zero six-flow. We prove this conjecture for cyclically five-edge-connected, cubic signed graphs.

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-01-12 Kathryn Nurse

We prove that, in several settings, a graph has exponentially many nowhere-zero flows. These results may be seen as a counting alternative to the well-known proofs of existence of $Z_3$-, $Z_4$-, and $Z_6$-flows. In the dual setting,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-04-09 Zdeněk Dvořák , Bojan Mohar , Robert Šámal

In 1983, Bouchet conjectured that every flow-admissible signed graph admits a nowhere-zero 6-flow. We verify this conjecture for the class of flow-admissible signed graphs possessing a spanning even Eulerian subgraph, which includes as a…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-10-10 Chao Wen , Qiang Sun , Chao Zhang

A $k$-weak bisection of a cubic graph $G$ is a partition of the vertex-set of $G$ into two parts $V_1$ and $V_2$ of equal size, such that each connected component of the subgraph of $G$ induced by $V_i$ ($i=1,2$) is a tree of at most $k-2$…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2017-09-15 Louis Esperet , Giuseppe Mazzuoccolo , Michael Tarsi

We prove that a signed graph admits a nowhere-zero $8$-flow provided that it is flow-admissible and the underlying graph admits a nowhere-zero $4$-flow. When combined with the 4-color theorem, this implies that every flow-admissible…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-02-21 Rong Luo , Edita Máčajová , Martin Škoviera , Cun-Quan Zhang

A connected graph G is 3-flow-critical if G does not have a nowhere-zero 3-flow, but every proper contraction of G does. We prove that every n-vertex 3-flow-critical graph other than K_2 and K_4 has at least 5n/3 edges. This bound is tight…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-04-02 Zdeněk Dvořák , Sergey Norin

A $3$-dimensional nowhere-zero flow on a graph $G$ is a flow where each edge is assigned a $3$-dimensional vector with unit norm (which corresponds to the points of a $2$-dimensional unit sphere $S^2$). K. Jain posed two conjectures related…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-03-25 Nikolay Ulyanov

We initiate the study of nowhere-zero flow reconfiguration. The natural question is whether any two nowhere-zero $k$-flows of a given graph $G$ are connected by a sequence of nowhere-zero $k$-flows of $G$, such that any two consecutive…

In this paper we study the flow-property of graphs containing a spanning triangle-tree. Our main results provide a structure characterization of graphs with a spanning triangle-tree admitting a nowhere-zero $3$-flow. All these graphs…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-10-14 Jiaao Li , Xueliang Li , Meiling Wang

Let $Z_2\times Z_2=\{0, \alpha, \beta, \alpha+\beta\}$. If $G$ is a bridgeless cubic graph, $F$ is a perfect matching of $G$ and $\overline{F}$ is the complementary 2-factor of $F$, then a no-where zero $Z_2\times Z_2$-flow $\theta$ of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-04-29 Vahan Mkrtchyan

Many basic properties in Tutte's flow theory for unsigned graphs do not have their counterparts for signed graphs. However, signed graphs without long barbells in many ways behave like unsigned graphs from the point view of flows. In this…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-09-02 You Lu , Rong Luo , Michael Schubert , Eckhard Steffen , Cun-Quan Zhang

The study of nowhere-zero flows began with a key observation of Tutte that in planar graphs, nowhere-zero k-flows are dual to k-colourings (in the form of k-tensions). Tutte conjectured that every graph without a cut-edge has a nowhere-zero…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2013-11-01 Matt DeVos

A set $R\subseteq E(G)$ of a graph $G$ is $k$-removable if $G-R$ has a nowhere-zero $k$-flow. We prove that every graph $G$ admitting a nowhere-zero $4$-flow has a $3$-removable subset consisting of at most $\frac{1}{6}|E(G)|$ edges. This…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-11-04 Davide Mattiolo

In 1983, Bouchet proved that every bidirected graph with a nowhere-zero integer-flow has a nowhere-zero 216-flow, and conjectured that 216 could be replaced with 6. This paper shows that for cyclically 5-edge-connected bidirected graphs…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-09-06 Matt DeVos , Kathryn Nurse , Robert Sámal

Bouchet conjectured in 1983 that each signed graph that admits a nowhere-zero flow has a nowhere-zero 6-flow. We prove that the conjecture is true for all signed series-parallel graphs. Unlike the unsigned case, the restriction to…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2014-11-10 Tomáš Kaiser , Edita Rollová

A triangle-path in a graph $G$ is a sequence of distinct triangles $T_1,T_2,\ldots,T_m$ in $G$ such that for any $i, j$ with $1\leq i < j \leq m$, $|E(T_i)\cap E(T_{i+1})|=1$ and $E(T_i)\cap E(T_j)=\emptyset$ if $j > i+1$. A connected graph…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-10-23 Liangchen Li , Chong Li , Rong Luo , Cun-Quan Zhang

In 1981 Seymour proved his famous 6-flow theorem asserting that every 2-edge-connected graph has a nowhere-zero flow in the group ${\mathbb Z}_2 \times {\mathbb Z}_3$ (in fact, he offers two proofs of this result). In this note we give a…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-02-20 Matt DeVos , Jessica McDonald , Kathryn Nurse

We verify Tutte's $3$-flow conjecture in the class of Cayley graphs on solvable groups of order $2n$, where $n$ is square-free. The proof relies on a new necessary and sufficient condition for a simple $5$-valent graph to admit a…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-03-26 Milad Ahanjideh , István Kovács

We prove that every 3-edge-connected graph $G$ has a 3-flow $\phi$ with the property that $|\mathop{supp}(\phi)| \ge \frac{5}{6} |E(G)|$. The graph $K_4$ demonstrates that this $\frac{5}{6}$ ratio is best possible; there is an infinite…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-02-22 Matt DeVos , Jessica McDonald , Irene Pivotto , Edita Rollová , Robert Šámal

In 1983, Bouchet proposed a conjecture that every flow-admissible signed graph admits a nowhere-zero $6$-flow. Bouchet himself proved that such signed graphs admit nowhere-zero $216$-flows and Zyka further proved that such signed graphs…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-08-30 Matt DeVos , Jiaao Li , You Lu , Rong Luo , Cun-Quan Zhang , Zhang Zhang