A graph $G$ is called matching covered if all of its edges are contained in some perfect matching of $G$. Furthermore, a cycle $C \subseteq G$ is called conformal if $G - V(C)$ has a perfect matching and $G$ itself is called cycle-conformal if all of its even cycles are conformal. Both matching covered graphs and conformal cycles play central roles in matching theory.
After a string of results from various authors, focused mainly on bipartite, planar graphs and claw-free graphs, a complete characterisation of all planar, cycle-conformal graphs has recently been presented by Dalwadi, Pause, Diwan, and Kothari [DMTCS, 2025]. We continue this exploration further into the realm of non-planar graphs, giving a characterisation of matching covered, cycle-conformal graphs that are bipartite and cubic, and respectively, those that are bipartite and Pfaffian. The last class plays a fundamental role in matching theory, having important connections to the problem of counting perfect matchings, recognising graphs with even directed cycles, and computing the permanent of certain matrices efficiently.
To prove our results, we break matching covered graphs down to their building blocks, the bipartite ones of which are called braces. The key to both characterisations are theorems that identify the braces in the respective classes. In particular, as our main results, we show that the cycle of length 4 is the only Pfaffian, cycle-conformal brace and we show that $K_{3,3}$ is the only cubic, cycle-conformal brace. In both cases these theorems facilitate the characterisations of the much richer classes of associated matching covered graphs. We conjecture that for each integer $\ell \geq 2$ the only $\ell$-regular, cycle-conformal brace is $K_{\ell,\ell}$.
DP-coloring is a generalization of a list coloring in simple graphs. Many results in list coloring can be generalized in those of DP-coloring. Kim and Ozeki showed that planar graphs without $k$-cycles where $k=3,4,5,$ or $6$ are DP-$4$-colorable. Recently, Kim and Yu extended the result on $3$- and $4$-cycles by showing that planar graphs without triangles adjacent to $4$-cycles are DP-$4$-colorable. Xu and Wu showed that planar graphs without $5$-cycles adjacent simultaneously to $3$-cycles and $4$-cycles are $4$-choosable. In this paper, we extend the result on $5$-cycles and triangles adja…
Xu and Wu proved that if every $5$-cycle of a planar graph $G$ is not simultaneously adjacent to $3$-cycles and $4$-cycles, then $G$ is $4$-choosable. In this paper, we improve this result as follows. Let $\{i, j, k, l\} = \{3,4,5,6\}.$ For any chosen $i,$ if every $i$-cycle of a planar graph $G$ is not simultaneously adjacent to $j$-cycles, $k$-cycles, and $l$-cycles, then $G$ is $4$-choosable.
We prove that the cycle space of every planar finitely separable 3-connected graph $G$ is generated by some ${\rm Aut}(G)$-invariant nested set of cycles. We also discuss the situation in the case of smaller connectivity.
We show that the choosability of the square of planar graphs of max degree 4 without five cycles is at most 12. Keywords: planar graph, choosability AMS Mathematics Subject Classification: 05C15
This paper proves that if $G$ is a planar graph without 4-cycles and $l$-cycles for some $l\in\{5, 6, 7\}$, then there exists a matching $M$ such that $AT(G-M)\leq 3$. This implies that every planar graph without 4-cycles and $l$-cycles for some $l\in\{5, 6, 7\}$ is 1-defective 3-paintable.
Whitney proved in 1931 that every 4-connected planar triangulation is hamiltonian. Later in 1979, Hakimi, Schmeichel and Thomassen conjectured that every such triangulation on $n$ vertices has at least $2(n - 2)(n - 4)$ hamiltonian cycles. Along this direction, Brinkmann, Souffriau and Van Cleemput established a linear lower bound on the number of hamiltonian cycles in 4-connected planar triangulations. In stark contrast, Alahmadi, Aldred and Thomassen showed that every 5-connected triangulation of the plane or the projective plane has exponentially many hamiltonian cycles. This gives the moti…
Necessary condition to have Hamiltonian cycle in planar graph is given. Examples of regular planar graphs degree three without Hamiltonian cycle are built.
DP-coloring (also known as correspondence coloring) of a simple graph is a generalization of list coloring. It is known that planar graphs without 4-cycles adjacent to triangles are 4-choosable, and planar graphs without 4-cycles are DP-4-colorable. In this paper, we show that planar graphs without 4-cycles adjacent to triangles are DP-4-colorable, which is an extension of the two results above.
The concept of DP-coloring of a graph is a generalization of list coloring introduced by Dvořák and Postle in 2015. Multiple DP-coloring of graphs, as a generalization of multiple list coloring, was first studied by Bernshteyn, Kostochka and Zhu in 2019. This paper proves that planar graphs without 3-cycles and normally adjacent 4-cycles are $(7m, 2m)$-DP-colorable for every integer $m$. As a consequence, the strong fractional choice number of any planar graph without 3-cycles and normally adjacent 4-cycles is at most $7/2$.
Consider two conditions on a graph: (1) each 5-cycle is not a subgraph of 5-wheel and does not share exactly one edge with 3-cycle, and (2) each 5-cycle is not adjacent to two 3-cycles and is not adjacent to a 4-cycle with chord. We show that if a planar graph $G$ satisfies one of the these conditions, then $G$ is 4-choosable. This yields that if each 5-cycle of a planar graph $G$ is not adjacent a 3-cycle, then $G$ is 4-choosable.
Let $G$ be a graph without 4-cycles and 5-cycles. We show that the problem to determine whether $G$ is $(0,k)$-colorable is NP-complete for each positive integer $k.$ Moreover, we construct non-$(1,k)$-colorable planar graphs without 4-cycles and 5-cycles for each positive integer $k.$ Finally, we prove that $G$ is $(d_1,d_2)$-colorable where $(d_1,d_2)=(4,4), (3,5),$ and $(2,9).$
We first prove a one-to-one correspondence between finding Hamiltonian cycles in a cubic planar graphs and finding trees with specific properties in dual graphs. Using this information, we construct an exact algorithm for finding Hamiltonian cycles in cubic planar graphs. The worst case time complexity of our algorithm is O$(2^n)$.
Let G be a graph. It was proved that if G is a planar graph without {4, 6, 7}-cycles and without two 5-cycles sharing exactly one edge, then G 3-colorable. We observed that the proof of this result is not correct.
We prove that, for every natural number $k$, every sufficiently large 3-connected cubic planar graph has a cycle whose length is in $[k,2k+9]$. We also show that this bound is close to being optimal by constructing, for every even $k\geq 4$, an infinite family of 3-connected cubic planar graphs that contain no cycle whose length is in $[k,2k+1]$.
Given a triangle-free planar graph G and a 9-cycle C in G, we characterize situations where a 3-coloring of C does not extend to a proper 3-coloring of G. This extends previous results when C is a cycle of length at most 8.
Two cycles are {\em adjacent} if they have an edge in common. Suppose that $G$ is a planar graph, for any two adjacent cycles $C_{1}$ and $C_{2}$, we have $|C_{1}| + |C_{2}| \geq 11$, in particular, when $|C_{1}| = 5$, $|C_{2}| \geq 7$. We show that the graph $G$ is 3-colorable.
A graph is near-bipartite if its vertex set can be partitioned into an independent set and a set which induces a forest. In this paper, planar graphs without cycles of length from 4 to 7 are shown to be near-bipartite.
Hakimi, Schmeichel, and Thomassen in 1979 conjectured that every $4$-connected planar triangulation $G$ on $n$ vertices has at least $2(n-2)(n-4)$ Hamiltonian cycles, with equality if and only if $G$ is a double wheel. In this paper, we show that every $4$-connected planar triangulation on $n$ vertices has $Ω(n^2)$ Hamiltonian cycles. Moreover, we show that if $G$ is a $4$-connected planar triangulation on $n$ vertices and the distance between any two vertices of degree $4$ in $G$ is at least $3$, then $G$ has $2^{Ω(n^{1/4})}$ Hamiltonian cycles.
In this paper, we show that every planar graph without $4$-cycles and $6$-cycles has a partition of its vertex set into two sets, where one set induces a forest, and the other induces a forest with maximum degree at most $2$ (equivalently, a disjoint union of paths). Note that we can partition the vertex set of a forest into two independent sets. However, a pair of independent sets combined may not induce a forest. Thus our result extends the result of Wang and Xu (2013) stating that the vertex set of every planar graph without $4$-cycles and $6$-cycles can be partitioned into three sets, wher…
A generalization of list-coloring, now known as DP-coloring, was recently introduced by Dvořák and Postle. Essentially, DP-coloring assigns an arbitrary matching between lists of colors at adjacent vertices, as opposed to only matching identical colors as is done for list-coloring. Several results on list-coloring of planar graphs have since been extended to the setting of DP-coloring. We note that list-coloring results do not always extend to DP-coloring results. Our main result in this paper is to prove that every planar graph without cycles of length $\{4, a, b, 9\}$ for $a, b \in \{6, 7, 8…
Hu and Li investigate the signed graph version of Erd$\ddot{\mathrm{o}}$s problem: Is there a constant $c$ such that every signed planar graph without $k$-cycles, where $4\leq k\leq c$, is $3$-colorable and prove that each signed planar graph without cycles of length from 4 to 8 is 3-colorable. We give a very short and simple proof of this result and improve it, based on a recent observation.
DP-coloring as a generalization of list coloring was introduced by Dvořák and Postle in 2017, who proved that every planar graph without cycles from 4 to 8 is 3-choosable, which was conjectured by Borodin {\it et al.} in 2007. In this paper, we prove that every planar graph without adjacent cycles of length at most $8$ is $3$-choosable, which extends this result of Dvořák and Postle.
We resolve a conjecture of Cox and Martin by determining asymptotically for every $k\ge 2$ the maximum number of copies of $C_{2k}$ in an $n$-vertex planar graph.
Whitney proved in 1931 that 4-connected planar triangulations are Hamiltonian. Hakimi, Schmeichel, and Thomassen conjectured in 1979 that if $G$ is a 4-connected planar triangulation with $n$ vertices then $G$ contains at least $2(n-2)(n-4)$ Hamiltonian cycles, with equality if and only if $G$ is a double wheel. On the other hand, a recent result of Alahmadi, Aldred, and Thomassen states that there are exponentially many Hamiltonian cycles in 5-connected planar triangulations. In this paper, we consider 4-connected planar $n$-vertex triangulations $G$ that do not have too many separating 4-cyc…
In the 1960s, Erdős and his cooperators initiated the research of the maximum numbers of edges in a graph or a planar graph on $n$ vertices without $k$ edge-disjoint cycles. This problem had been solved for $k\leq4$. As pointed out by Bollobás, it is very difficult for general $k$. Recently, Tait and Tobin [J. Combin. Theory Ser. B, 2017] confirmed a famous conjecture on maximum spectral radius of $n$-vertex planar graphs. Motivated by the above results, we consider two extremal problems on planar graphs without $k$ edge-disjoint cycles. We first determine the maximum number of edges in a plan…
DP-coloring (also known as correspondence coloring) is a generalization of list coloring, introduced by Dvořák and Postle in 2017. It is well-known that there are non-4-choosable planar graphs. Much attention has recently been put on sufficient conditions for planar graphs to be DP-$4$-colorable. In particular, for each $k \in \{3, 4, 5, 6\}$, every planar graph without $k$-cycles is DP-$4$-colorable. In this paper, we prove that every planar graph without $7$-cycles and butterflies is DP-$4$-colorable. Our proof can be easily modified to prove other sufficient conditions that forbid clusters …
A graph is {\em near-bipartite} if its vertex set can be partitioned into an independent set and a set that induces a forest. It is clear that near-bipartite graphs are $3$-colorable. In this note, we show that planar graphs without cycles of lengths in $\{4, 6, 8\}$ are near-bipartite.
For two given graphs $G$ and $H$ the planar Ramsey number $PR(G,H)$ is the smallest integer $n$ such that every planar graph $F$ on $n$ vertices either contains a copy of $G$, or its complement contains a copy of $H$. In this paper, we first characterize some structural properties of $C_4$-free planar graphs, and then we determine all planar Ramsey numbers $PR(C_4, W_n)$, for $n\ge 3$.
A graph $G$ is $(I,F)$-partitionable if its vertex set can be partitioned into two parts such that one part is an independent set, and the other induces a forest. In this paper, we prove that every planar graph without cycles of length $4, 6, 9$ is $(I,F)$-partitionable.
For large $n$ we determine exactly the maximum numbers of induced $C_4$ and $C_5$ subgraphs that a planar graph on $n$ vertices can contain. We show that $K_{2,n-2}$ uniquely achieves this maximum in the $C_4$ case, and we identify the graphs which achieve the maximum in the $C_5$ case. This extends work in a paper by Hakimi and Schmeichel and a paper by Ghosh, Győri, Janzer, Paulos, Salia, and Zamora which together determine both maxima asymptotically.
Let m(G) be the maximum number of vertex-disjoint odd cycles of a graph G and t(G) the minimum number of vertices whose removal makes G bipartite. We show that t(G)<=6m(G) if G is planar. This improves the previous bound t(G)<=10m(G) by Fiorini, Hardy, Reed and Vetta [Math. Program. Ser. B 110 (2007), 71-91].
DP-coloring is a generalization of list coloring, which was introduced by Dvořák and Postle [J. Combin. Theory Ser. B 129 (2018) 38--54]. Zhang [Inform. Process. Lett. 113 (9) (2013) 354--356] showed that every planar graph with neither adjacent triangles nor 5-, 6-, 9-cycles is 3-choosable. Liu et al. [Discrete Math. 342 (2019) 178--189] showed that every planar graph without 4-, 5-, 6- and 9-cycles is DP-3-colorable. In this paper, we show that every planar graph with neither adjacent triangles nor 5-, 6-, 9-cycles is DP-3-colorable, which generalizes these results. Yu et al. gave three Bord…
In this work we present an algorithm with which any arbitrary cubic planar map may be constructed through successive edge insertion while simultaneously constructing a set of proper edge labels and Hamiltonian cycles for each configuration. We present a publicly available Python implementation of this algorithm, and discuss both theoretical and numerical support for its validity, with reference to the well-known Four Colour Theorem.
By a well-known theorem of Thomassen and a planar graph depicted by Voigt, we know that every planar graph is $5$-choosable, and the bound is tight. In 1999, Lam, Xu and Liu reduced $5$ to $4$ on $C_4$-free planar graphs. In the paper, by applying the famous Combinatorial Nullstellensatz, we design an effective algorithm to deal with list coloring problems. At the same time, we prove that a planar graph $G$ is $4$-choosable if any two $4$-cycles having distance at least $5$ in $G$, which extends the result of Lam et al.
We introduce a new variant of graph coloring called correspondence coloring which generalizes list coloring and allows for reductions previously only possible for ordinary coloring. Using this tool, we prove that excluding cycles of lengths 4 to 8 is sufficient to guarantee 3-choosability of a planar graph, thus answering a question of Borodin.
In this paper we consider the number of Hamilton cycles in planar cubic graphs of high cyclic edge-connectivity, answering two questions raised by Chia and Thomassen ("On the number of longest and almost longest cycles in cubic graphs", Ars Combin., 104, 307--320, 2012) about extremal graphs in these families. In particular, we find families of cyclically $5$-edge connected planar cubic graphs with more Hamilton cycles than the generalized Petersen graphs $P(2n,2)$. The graphs themselves are fullerene graphs that correspond to certain carbon molecules known as nanotubes --- more precisely, the…
In a closed 2-cell embedding of a graph each face is homeomorphic to an open disk and is bounded by a cycle in the graph. The Orientable Strong Embedding Conjecture says that every 2-connected graph has a closed 2-cell embedding in some orientable surface. This implies both the Cycle Double Cover Conjecture and the Strong Embedding Conjecture. In this paper we prove that every 2-connected projective-planar cubic graph has a closed 2-cell embedding in some orientable surface. The three main ingredients of the proof are (1) a surgical method to convert nonorientable embeddings into orientable em…
Merker conjectured that if $k \ge 2$ is an integer and $G$ a 3-connected cubic planar graph of circumference at least $k$, then the set of cycle lengths of $G$ must contain at least one element of the interval $[k, 2k+2]$. We here prove that for every even integer $k \ge 6$ there is an infinite family of counterexamples.
A list assignment of a graph $G$ is a function $L$ that assigns a list $L(v)$ of colors to each vertex $v\in V(G)$. An $(L,d)^*$-coloring is a mapping $π$ that assigns a color $π(v)\in L(v)$ to each vertex $v\in V(G)$ so that at most $d$ neighbors of $v$ receive color $π(v)$. A graph $G$ is said to be $(k,d)^*$-choosable if it admits an $(L,d)^*$-coloring for every list assignment $L$ with $|L(v)|\ge k$ for all $v\in V(G)$. In 2001, Lih et al. \cite{LSWZ-01} proved that planar graphs without 4- and $l$-cycles are $(3,1)^*$-choosable, where $l\in \{5,6,7\}$. Later, Dong and Xu \cite{DX-09} prov…
Wang and Lih in 2002 conjectured that every planar graph without adjacent triangles is 4-choosable. In this paper, we prove that every planar graph without any 4-cycle adjacent to two triangles is DP-4-colorable, which improves the results of Lam, Xu and Liu [Journal of Combin. Theory, Ser. B, 76 (1999) 117--126], of Cheng, Chen and Wang [Discrete Math., 339(2016) 3052--3057] and of Kim and Yu [arXiv:1709.09809v1].
Montassier, Raspaud, and Wang (2006) asked to find the smallest positive integers $d_0$ and $d_1$ such that planar graphs without $\{4,5\}$-cycles and $d^Δ\ge d_0$ are $3$-choosable and planar graphs without $\{4,5,6\}$-cycles and $d^Δ\ge d_1$ are $3$-choosable, where $d^Δ$ is the smallest distance between triangles. They showed that $2\le d_0\le 4$ and $d_1\le 3$. In this paper, we show that the following planar graphs are DP-3-colorable: (1) planar graphs without $\{4,5\}$-cycles and $d^Δ\ge 3$ are DP-$3$-colorable, and (2) planar graphs without $\{4,5,6\}$-cycles and $d^Δ\ge 2$ are DP-$3$-c…
In this paper we estimate the planar Turán number $\mathrm{ex}_\mathcal{P}(n,H)$ of some graphs $H$, i.e., the maximum number of edges in a planar graph $G$ of $n$ vertices not containing $H$ as a subgraph. We give a new, short proof when $H=C_5$, and study the cases when $G$ is bipartite or triangle-free and $H$ is a short even cycle. The proofs are mostly new applications or variants of the "contribution method" introduced by Ghosh, Győri, Martin, Paulos and Xiao in arXiv:2004.14094.
We study choosability with separation which is a constrained version of list coloring of graphs. A (k,d)-list assignment L on a graph G is a function that assigns to each vertex v a list L(v) of at least k colors and for any adjacent pair xy, the lists L(x) and L(y) share at most d colors. A graph G is (k,d)-choosable if there exists an L-coloring of G for every (k,d)-list assignment L. This concept is also known as choosability with separation. We prove that planar graphs without 4-cycles are (3,1)-choosable and that planar graphs without 5-cycles and 6-cycles are (3,1)-choosable. In addition…
Let $G$ be a planar graph without 4-cycles and 5-cycles and with maximum degree $Δ\ge 32$. We prove that $χ_{\ell}(G^2)\le Δ+3$. For arbitrarily large maximum degree $Δ$, there exist planar graphs $G_Δ$ of girth 6 with $χ(G_Δ^2)=Δ+2$. Thus, our bound is within 1 of being optimal. Further, our bound comes from coloring greedily in a good order, so the bound immediately extends to online list-coloring. In addition, we prove bounds for $L(p,q)$-labeling. Specifically, $λ_{2,1}(G)\le Δ+8$ and, more generally, $λ_{p,q}(G)\le (2q-1)Δ+6p-2q-2$, for positive integers $p$ and $q$ with $p\ge q$. Again, …
Let $P(n,m)$ be a graph chosen uniformly at random from the class of all planar graphs on vertex set $\{1, \ldots, n\}$ with $m=m(n)$ edges. We study the cycle and block structure of $P(n,m)$ when $m\sim n/2$. More precisely, we determine the asymptotic order of the length of the longest and shortest cycle in $P(n,m)$ in the critical range when $m=n/2+o(n)$. In addition, we describe the block structure of $P(n,m)$ in the weakly supercritical regime when $n^{2/3}\ll m-n/2\ll n$.
A graph G is (a:b)-colorable if there exists an assignment of b-element subsets of {1,...,a} to vertices of G such that sets assigned to adjacent vertices are disjoint. We show that every planar graph without cycles of length 4 or 5 is (11:3)-colorable, a weakening of recently disproved Steinberg's conjecture. In particular, each such graph with n vertices has an independent set of size at least 3n/11.
For a set of nonnegative integers $c_1, \ldots, c_k$, a $(c_1, c_2,\ldots, c_k)$-coloring of a graph $G$ is a partition of $V(G)$ into $V_1, \ldots, V_k$ such that for every $i$, $1\le i\le k, G[V_i]$ has maximum degree at most $c_i$. We prove that all planar graphs without 4-cycles and no less than two edges between triangles are $(2,0,0)$-colorable.
A $(c_1,c_2,...,c_k)$-coloring of $G$ is a mapping $φ:V(G)\mapsto\{1,2,...,k\}$ such that for every $i,1 \leq i \leq k$, $G[V_i]$ has maximum degree at most $c_i$, where $G[V_i]$ denotes the subgraph induced by the vertices colored $i$. Borodin and Raspaud conjecture that every planar graph without $5$-cycles and intersecting triangles is $(0,0,0)$-colorable. We prove in this paper that such graphs are $(1,1,0)$-colorable.
School of Data Sciences, Zhejiang University of Finance & Economics（浙江财经大学数据科学学院）；School of Mathematics, Statistics and Mechanics, Beijing University of Technology（北京工业大学数学、统计与力学学院）
