Related papers: Perfect matching index vs. circular flow number of…
Let G be a bridgeless cubic graph. A well-known conjecture of Berge and Fulkerson can be stated as follows: there exist five perfect matchings of G such that each edge of G is contained in at least one of them. Here, we prove that in each…
If $G$ is a bridgeless cubic graph, Fulkerson conjectured that we can find 6 perfect matchings $M_1,...,M_6$ of $G$ with the property that every edge of $G$ is contained in exactly two of them and Berge conjectured that its edge set can be…
A conjecture of Berge suggests that every bridgeless cubic graph can have its edges covered with at most five perfect matchings. Since three perfect matchings suffice only when the graph in question is $3$-edge-colourable, the rest of cubic…
We study two measures of uncolourability of cubic graphs, their colouring defect and perfect matching index. The colouring defect of a cubic graph $G$ is the smallest number of edges left uncovered by three perfect matchings; the perfect…
The problem of establishing the number of perfect matchings necessary to cover the edge-set of a cubic bridgeless graph is strictly related to a famous conjecture of Berge and Fulkerson. In this paper we prove that deciding whether this…
A conjecture of Berge and Fulkerson (1971) states that every cubic bridgeless graph contains 6 perfect matchings covering each edge precisely twice, which easily implies that every cubic bridgeless graph has three perfect matchings with…
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…
It is proved that for $n \geq 6$, the number of perfect matchings in a simple connected cubic graph on $2n$ vertices is at most $4 f_{n-1}$, with $f_n$ being the $n$-th Fibonacci number. The unique extremal graph is characterized as well.…
Berge Conjecture states that every bridgeless cubic graph has 5 perfect matchings such that each edge is contained in at least one of them. In this paper, we show that Berge Conjecture holds for two classes of cubic graphs, cubic graphs…
A long-standing conjecture of Berge suggests that every bridgeless cubic graph can be expressed as a union of at most five perfect matchings. This conjecture trivially holds for $3$-edge-colourable cubic graphs, but remains widely open for…
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…
Let m be a positive integer and let G be a cubic graph of order 2n. We consider the problem of covering the edge-set of G with the minimum number of matchings of size m. This number is called excessive [m]-index of G in literature. The case…
If $G$ is a bridgeless cubic graph, Fulkerson conjectured that we can find 6 perfect matchings (a{\em Fulkerson covering}) with the property that every edge of $G$ is contained in exactly two of them. A consequence of the Fulkerson…
Many conjectures and open problems in graph theory can either be reduced to cubic graphs or are directly stated for cubic graphs. Furthermore, it is known that for a lot of problems, a counterexample must be a snark, i.e. a bridgeless cubic…
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 $k-2$…
Let $G$ be a connected graph with vertex set $V(G)=\{v_1,v_2,...,v_{\nu}\}$, which may have multiple edges but have no loops, and $2\leq d_G(v_i)\leq 3$ for $i=1,2,...,\nu$, where $d_G(v)$ denotes the degree of vertex $v$ of $G$. We show…
We discuss the question whether the existence of perfect matchings in a cubic graph can be seen from the spectrum of its adjacency matrix. For regular graphs in general and for three edge-disjoint perfect matchings in a cubic graph (that…
For a bridgeless cubic graph $G$, $m_3(G)$ is the ratio of the maximum number of edges of $G$ covered by the union of $3$ perfect matchings to $|E(G)|$. We prove that for any $r\in [4/5, 1)$, there exist infinitely many cubic graphs $G$…
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…
The Berge-Fulkerson conjecture states that every bridgeless cubic graph can be covered with six perfect matchings such that each edge is covered exactly twice. An equivalent reformulation is that it's possible to find a 6-cycle 4-cover. In…