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Let $G$ be a bridgeless cubic graph. Consider a list of $k$ 1-factors of $G$. Let $E_i$ be the set of edges contained in precisely $i$ members of the $k$ 1-factors. Let $\mu_k(G)$ be the smallest $|E_0|$ over all lists of $k$ 1-factors of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2015-09-22 Eckhard Steffen

Let $G$ be a bridgeless cubic graph. The Berge--Fulkerson Conjecture (1970s) states that $G$ admits a list of six perfect matchings such that each edge of $G$ belongs to exactly two of these perfect matchings. If answered in the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-01-02 František Kardoš , Edita Máčajová , Jean Paul Zerafa

In this paper we further our understanding of the structure of class two cubic graphs, or snarks, as they are commonly known. We do this by investigating their 3-critical subgraphs, or as we will call them, minimal conflicting subgraphs. We…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-01-20 Imran Allie

The Petersen colouring conjecture states that every bridgeless cubic graph admits an edge-colouring with $5$ colours such that for every edge $e$, the set of colours assigned to the edges adjacent to $e$ has cardinality either $2$ or $4$,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2020-09-11 François Pirot , Jean-Sébastien Sereni , Riste Škrekovski

In 1994, it was conjectured by Fan and Raspaud that every simple bridgeless cubic graph has three perfect matchings whose intersection is empty. In this paper we answer a question recently proposed by Mkrtchyan and Vardanyan, by giving an…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-03-22 Giuseppe Mazzuoccolo , Jean Paul Zerafa

For some time the Petersen graph has been the only known Snark with circular flow number $5$ (or more, as long as the assertion of Tutte's $5$-flow Conjecture is in doubt). Although infinitely many such snarks were presented eight years ago…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2016-02-25 Louis Esperet , Giuseppe Mazzuoccolo , Michael Tarsi

In graph theory, a Snark is a connected, bridgeless, Cubic graph that cannot be edge-colored with only three colors. Additionally, to avoid some trivial cases, a Snark is typically required to have a girth of minimum five and a cyclic…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-11-13 Bansari. J. Rayjada , Jekil. A. Gadhiya , Mahadityasinh. A. Sarvaiya

In [{Structural properties and decomposition of linear balanced matrices}, {\it Mathematical Programming}, 55:129--168, 1992], Conforti and Rao conjectured that every balanced bipartite graph contains an edge that is not the unique chord of…

The well-known 5-flow Conjecture of Tutte, stated originally for integer flows, claims that every bridgeless graph has circular flow number at most 5. It is a classical result that the study of the 5-flow Conjecture can be reduced to cubic…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2018-04-04 Jan Goedgebeur , Davide Mattiolo , Giuseppe Mazzuoccolo

In a proper edge-coloring of a cubic graph an edge $uv$ is called poor or rich, if the set of colors of the edges incident to $u$ and $v$ contains exactly three or five colors, respectively. An edge-coloring of a graph is normal, if any…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2021-10-05 Luca Ferrarini , Giuseppe Mazzuoccolo , Vahan Mkrtchyan

Petersen's seminal work in 1891 asserts that the edge-set of a cubic graph can be covered by distinct perfect matchings if and only if it is bridgeless. Actually, it is known that for a very large fraction of bridgeless cubic graphs, every…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-10-16 Jan Goedgebeur , Davide Mattiolo , Giuseppe Mazzuoccolo , Jarne Renders , Isaak H. Wolf

It is well-known that the circular flow number of a bridgeless cubic graph can be computed in terms of certain partitions of its vertex-set with prescribed properties. In the present paper, we first study some of these properties that turn…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-09-24 Jan Goedgebeur , Davide Mattiolo , Giuseppe Mazzuoccolo

A perfect pseudo-matching M in a cubic graph G is a spanning subgraph of G such that every component of M is isomorphic to K_2 or to K_1,3. In view of snarks G with dominating cycle C, this is a natural generalization of perfect matchings…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-05-14 Herbert Fleischner , Behrooz Bagheri Gh. , Benedikt Klocker

If $G$ and $H$ are two cubic graphs, then an $H$-coloring of $G$ is a proper edge-coloring $f$ with edges of $H$, such that for each vertex $x$ of $G$, there is a vertex $y$ of $H$ with $f(\partial_G(x))=\partial_H(y)$. If $G$ admits an…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2018-07-24 Anush Hakobyan , Vahan Mkrtchyan

We prove that every cyclically 4-edge-connected cubic graph that can be embedded in the torus, with the exceptional graph class called "Petersen-like", is 3-edge-colorable. This means every (non-trivial) toroidal snark can be obtained from…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-05-13 Yuta Inoue , Ken-ichi Kawarabayashi , Atsuyuki Miyashita , Bojan Mohar , Tomohiro Sonobe

In this paper, a proof of the cycle double cover conjecture is presented. The cycle double cover conjecture purports that if a graph is bridgeless, then there exists a list of cycles in the graph such that every edge in the graph appears in…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2014-04-08 P. Clarke

The classical Berge-Fulkerson conjecture states that any bridgeless cubic graph $G$ admits a list of six perfect matchings such that each edge of $G$ belongs to two of the perfect matchings from the list. In this short note, we discuss two…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2018-05-18 Vahan V. Mkrtchyan , Gagik N. Vardanyan

We show that every bridgeless cubic graph $G$ on $n$ vertices other than the Petersen graph has a 2-factor with at most $2(n-2)/15$ circuits of length $5$. An infinite family of graphs attains this bound. We also show that $G$ has a…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2015-09-25 Barbora Candráková , Robert Lukoťka

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

A proper abelian coloring of a cubic graph G by a finite abelian group A is any proper edge-coloring of G by the non-zero elements of A such that the sum of the colors of the three edges incident to any vertex v of G equals zero. It is…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-02-12 Jelena Sedlar , Riste Škrekovski