We prove that a random cubic graph almost surely is not homomorphic to a cycle of size 7. This implies that there exist cubic graphs of arbitrarily high girth with no homomorphisms to the cycle of size 7.
We give a (computer assisted) proof that the edges of every graph with maximum degree 3 and girth at least 17 may be 5-colored (possibly improperly) so that the complement of each color class is bipartite. Equivalently, every such graph admits a homomorphism to the Clebsch graph. Hopkins and Staton and Bondy and Locke proved that every (sub)cubic graph of girth at least 4 has an edge-cut containing at least 4/5 of the edges. The existence of such an edge-cut follows immediately from the existence of a 5-edge-coloring as described above, so our theorem may be viewed as a coloring extension of t…
Consider a family $\mathcal F$ of $C_{2r+1}$-free graphs, where $r\geq 2$. Suppose that each graph in $\mathcal F$ has minimum degree linear in its number of vertices. Thomassen showed that such a family has bounded chromatic number, or, equivalently, that all graphs in $\mathcal F$ are homomorphic to a complete graph of bounded size. Considering instead homomorphic images which are themselves $C_{2r+1}$-free, we construct a family of dense $C_{2r+1}$-free graphs with no $C_{2r+1}$-free homomorphic image of bounded size. This provides the first nontrivial lower bound on the homomorphism thresh…
Since counting subgraphs in general graphs is, by and large, a computationally demanding problem, it is natural to try and design fast algorithms for restricted families of graphs. One such family that has been extensively studied is that of graphs of bounded degeneracy (e.g., planar graphs). This line of work, which started in the early 80's, culminated in a recent work of Gishboliner et al., which highlighted the importance of the task of counting homomorphic copies of cycles (i.e., cyclic walks) in graphs of bounded degeneracy. Our main result in this paper is a surprisingly tight relation …
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$(2^n)$.
Investigating a problem of B. Mohar, we show that every one-ended Hamiltonian cubic graph with end degree 3 contains a second Hamilton cycle. We also construct two examples showing that this result does not extend to give a third Hamilton cycle, nor that it extends to the two-ended case.
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 $[k,2k+1]$.
Barnette conjectured that all cubic $3$-connected plane graphs with maximum face size at most $6$ are hamiltonian. We provide a method of construction of a hamiltonian cycle (in dual terms) in an arbitrary cubic, $3$-connected plane graph possessing such a face $g$ that every face incident with $g$ has at most $5$ edges and every other face has at most $6$ edges.
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…
The Shortest Cycle Cover Conjecture of Alon and Tarsi asserts that the edges of every bridgeless graph with $m$ edges can be covered by cycles of total length at most $7m/5=1.400m$. We show that every cubic bridgeless graph has a cycle cover of total length at most $34m/21\approx 1.619m$ and every bridgeless graph with minimum degree three has a cycle cover of total length at most $44m/27\approx 1.630m$.
We prove that for all natural numbers $m$ and $k$ where $k$ is odd, there exists a natural number $N(k)$ such that any 3-connected cubic graph with at least $N(k)$ vertices contains a cycle of length $m$ modulo $k$. We also construct a family of graphs showing that this is not true for 2-connected cubic graphs if $m$ and $k$ are divisible by 3 and $k\geq 12$.
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.
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.
We propose an effective algorithm that enumerates (and actually finds) all 3-edge colorings and Hamiltonian cycles in a cubic graph. The idea is to make a preliminary run that separates the vertices into two types: ``rigid'' (such that the edges incident to them admit a unique coloring) and ``soft'' ones (such that the edges incident to them admit two distinct colorings), and then to perform the coloring. The computational complexity of this algorithm is on a par with (or even below) the fastest known algorithms that find a single 3-edge coloring or a Hamiltonian cycle for a cubic graph.
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 $μ_k(G)$ be the smallest $|E_0|$ over all lists of $k$ 1-factors of $G$. Any list of three 1-factors induces a core of a cubic graph. We use results on the structure of cores to prove sufficient conditions for Berge-covers and for the existence of three 1-factors with empty intersection. Furthermore, if $μ_3(G) \not = 0$, then $2 μ_3(G)$ is an upper bound for the girth of $G$. We also prove some new upper bounds for the length …
We show that every bridgeless cubic graph $G$ with $m$ edges has a cycle cover of length at most $1.6 m$. Moreover, if $G$ does not contain any intersecting circuits of length $5$, then $G$ has a cycle cover of length $212/135 \cdot m \approx 1.570 m$ and if $G$ contains no $5$-circuits, then it has a cycle cover of length at most $14/9 \cdot m \approx 1.556 m$. To prove our results, we show that each $2$-edge-connected cubic graph $G$ on $n$ vertices has a $2$-factor containing at most $n/10+f(G)$ circuits of length $5$, where the value of $f(G)$ only depends on the presence of several subgra…
We study the existence of hamiltonian cycles in plane cubic graphs G having a facial 2-factor Q. Thus hamiltonicity in G is transformed into the existence of a (quasi) spanning tree of faces in the contraction G/Q. In particular, we study the case where G is the leapfrog extension (called vertex envelope in (Discrete Math., 309(14):4793-4809, 2009)) of a plane cubic graph G_0. As a consequence we prove hamiltonicity in the leapfrog extension of planar cubic cyclically 4-edge-connected bipartite graphs. This and other results of this paper establish partial solutions of Barnette's Conjecture ac…
It is a well-known fact that hamiltonicity in planar cubic graphs is an NP-complete problem. This implies that the existence of an A-trail in plane eulerian graphs is also an NP-complete problem even if restricted to planar 3-connected eulerian graphs. In this paper we deal with hamiltonicity in planar cubic graphs G having a facial 2-factor Q via (quasi) spanning trees of faces in G/Q and study the algorithmic complexity of finding such (quasi) spanning trees of faces. We show, in particular, that if Barnette's Conjecture is false, then hamiltonicity in 3-connected planar cubic bipartite grap…
The planar Turán number of a graph $H$, denoted $ex_{_\mathcal{P}}(n,H)$, is the maximum number of edges in a planar graph on $n$ vertices without containing $H$ as a subgraph. This notion was introduced by Dowden in 2016 and has attracted quite some attention since then; those work mainly focus on finding $ex_{_\mathcal{P}}(n,H)$ when $H$ is a cycle or Theta graph or $H$ has maximum degree at least four. In this paper, we study $ex_{_\mathcal{P}}(n,H)$ when $H$ is a cubic graph or disjoint union of cycles or $H=K_{s, t}$.
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…
A graph $G$ has the Perfect-Matching-Hamiltonian property (PMH-property) if for each one of its perfect matchings, there is another perfect matching of $G$ such that the union of the two perfect matchings yields a Hamiltonian cycle of $G$. The study of graphs that have the PMH-property, initiated in the 1970s by Las Vergnas and Häggkvist, combines three well-studied properties of graphs, namely matchings, Hamiltonicity and edge-colourings. In this work, we study these concepts for cubic graphs in an attempt to characterise those cubic graphs for which every perfect matching corresponds to one …
We show that every edge in a 2-edge-connected planar cubic graph is either contained in a 2-edge-cut or is a chord of some cycle that is contained in a 2-factor of the graph. As a consequence, we show that every edge in a cyclically 4-edge-connected planar cubic graph, except $K_2^3$ and $K_4$, is contained in a perfect matching whose removal disconnects the graph. We obtain a complete characterization of 2-edge-connected planar cubic graphs that have an edge such that every 2-factor containing the edge is a Hamiltonian cycle, and also of those that have an edge such that the complement of eve…
A note on cycles in cyclically $4$-edge-connected cubic planar graphs
School of Mathematical Sciences, Key Laboratory of Intelligent Computing and Applications (Tongji University), Ministry of Education, Tongji University(同济大学数学科学学院,智能计算与应用教育部重点实验室,同济大学)
Which $2$-regular subgraph $R$ of a cubic graph $G$ can be extended to a cycle double cover of $G$? We provide a condition which ensures that every $R$ satisfying this condition is part of a cycle double cover of $G$. As one consequence, we prove that every $2$-connected cubic graph which has a decomposition into a spanning tree and a $2$-regular subgraph $C$ consisting of $k$ circuits with $k\leq 3$, has a cycle double cover containing $C$.
Cubic factor-invariant graphs of cycle quotient type -- the alternating case
University of Newcastle(纽卡斯尔大学);Institute of Mathematics, Physics and Mechanics(数学物理力学研究所);University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Education(卢布尔雅那大学教育学院);University of Primorska, Institute Andrej Marušič(滨海大学安德烈亚·马鲁西奇研究所)
We show that any $3$-connected cubic plane graph on $n$ vertices, with all faces of size at most $6$, can be made bipartite by deleting no more than $\sqrt{(p+3t)n/5}$ edges, where $p$ and $t$ are the numbers of pentagonal and triangular faces, respectively. In particular, any such graph can be made bipartite by deleting at most $\sqrt{12n/5}$ edges. This bound is tight, and we characterise the extremal graphs. We deduce tight lower bounds on the size of a maximum cut and a maximum independent set for this class of graphs. This extends and sharpens the results of Faria, Klein and Stehlik [SIAM…
A cycle cover of a graph is a collection of cycles such that each edge of the graph is contained in at least one of the cycles. The length of a cycle cover is the sum of all cycle lengths in the cover. We prove that every bridgeless cubic graph with $m$ edges has a cycle cover of length at most $212/135 \cdot m \ (\approx 1.570 m)$. Moreover, if the graph is cyclically $4$-edge-connected we obtain a cover of length at most $47/30 \cdot m \approx 1.567 m$.
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 number is at most 4 for a given cubic bridgeless graph is NP-complete. We also construct an infinite family $\cal F$ of snarks (cyclically 4-edge-connected cubic graphs of girth at least five and chromatic index four) whose edge-set cannot be covered by 4 perfect matchings. Only two such graphs were known. It turns out that the family $\cal F$ also has interest…
In 1954, Tutte conjectured that every bridgeless graph has a nowhere-zero 5-flow. Let $ω$ be the minimum number of odd cycles in a 2-factor of a bridgeless cubic graph. Tutte's conjecture is equivalent to its restriction to cubic graphs with $ω\geq 2$. We show that if a cubic graph $G$ has no edge cut with fewer than $ {5/2} ω- 1$ edges that separates two odd cycles of a minimum 2-factor of $G$, then $G$ has a nowhere-zero 5-flow. This implies that if a cubic graph $G$ is cyclically $n$-edge connected and $n \geq {5/2} ω- 1$, then $G$ has a nowhere-zero 5-flow.
Given a bridgeless graph $G$, the Cycle Double Cover Conjecture posits that there is a list of cycles of $G$, such that every edge appears in exactly two cycles on the list. This conjecture was originally posed independently in 1973 by Szekeres and 1979 by Seymour. In 1985, Jaeger demonstrated that it is sufficient to prove in the case that $G$ is a cubic graph. We here present a proof that every bridgeless cubic graph has a cycle double cover by analyzing certain kinds of cycles in the line graph of $G$. Further, in the case that $G$ is cubic, we prove the stronger conjecture that given a bri…
We show that a cubic graph $G$ of order $n$ has an induced $2$-regular subgraph of order at least a) $\frac{n-2}{4-\frac{4}{k}}$, if $G$ has no induced cycle of length more than $k$, b) $\frac{5n+6}{8}$, if $G$ has no induced cycle of length more than $4$, and $n>6$, and c) $\left(\frac{1}{4}+ε\right)n$, if the independence number of $G$ is at most $\left(\frac{3}{8}-ε\right)n$. To show the second result we give a precise structural description of cubic $4$-chordal graphs.
The interplay of minimum degree conditions and structural properties of large graphs with forbidden subgraphs is a central topic in extremal graph theory. For a given graph $F$ we define the homomorphism threshold as the infimum over all $α\in[0,1]$ such that every $n$-vertex $F$-free graph $G$ with minimum degree at least $αn$ has a homomorphic image $H$ of bounded order (independent of $n$), which is $F$-free as well. Without the restriction of $H$ being $F$-free we recover the definition of the chromatic threshold, which was determined for every graph $F$ by Allen et al. [Adv. Math. 235 (20…
The circumference of a graph is the length of its longest cycles. Jackson established a conjecture of Bondy by showing that the circumference of a 3-connected cubic graph of order $n$ is $Ω(n^{0.694})$. Bilinski {\it et al.} improved this lower bound to $Ω(n^{0.753})$ by studying large Eulerian subgraphs in 3-edge-connected graphs. In this paper, we further improve this lower bound to $Ω(n^{0.8})$. This is done by considering certain 2-connected cubic graphs, finding cycles through two given edges, and distinguishing the cases whether or not these edges are adjacent.
For $k \ge 4$, let $Q_{2k}$ and $V_{2k}$ denote the ladder and Möbius ladder on $2k$ vertices, respectively. We prove results that build on a result by Wormald that states that any cyclically $4$-connected cubic graph other than $Q_8$ or $V_8$ is obtained from a smaller cyclically $4$-connected cubic graph by bridging a pair of non-adjacent edges. We introduce the concept of cycle spread, which generalizes the edge pair distance defined by Wormald, and show that the set of pairs of edges that needs to be considered in order to obtain all cyclically $4$-connected cubic graphs is smaller than th…
We explore the well-known Jaeger's directed cycle double cover conjecture which is equivalent to the assertion that every cubic bridgeless graph has an embedding on a closed orientable surface with no dual loop. We associate each cubic graph G with a novel object H that we call a "hexagon graph"; perfect matchings of H describe all embeddings of G on closed orientable surfaces. The study of hexagon graphs leads us to define a new class of graphs that we call "lean fork-graphs". Fork graphs are cubic bridgeless graphs obtained from a triangle by sequentially connecting fork-type graphs and perf…
We offer a new, gradual approach to the largest girth problem for cubic graphs. It is easily observed that the largest possible girth of all $n$-vertex cubic graphs is attained by a $2$-connected graph $G=(V,E)$. By Petersen's graph theorem, $E$ is the disjoint union of a $2$-factor and a perfect matching $M$. We refer to the edges of $M$ as chords and classify the cycles in $G$ by their number of chords. We define $γ_k(n)$ to be the largest integer $g$ such that every cubic $n$-vertex graph with a given perfect matching $M$ has a cycle of length at most $g$ with at most $k$ chords. Here we de…
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 since G-E(C) is a perfect pseudo-matching. Of special interest are such M where the graph G/M is planar because such G have a cycle double cover. We show that various well known classes of snarks contain planarizing perfect pseudo-matchings, and that there are at least as many snarks with planarizing perfect pseudo-matchings as there are cyclically 5-edge-con…
The circumference $c(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the length of a longest cycle. By exploiting our recent results on resistance of snarks, we construct infinite classes of cyclically $4$-, $5$- and $6$-edge-connected cubic graphs with circumference ratio $c(G)/|V(G)|$ bounded from above by $0.876$, $0.960$ and $0.990$, respectively. In contrast, the dominating cycle conjecture implies that the circumference ratio of a cyclically $4$-edge-connected cubic graph is at least $0.75$. In addition, we construct snarks with large girth and large circumference deficit, solving Problem 1 proposed in [J. Hägglu…
We prove new results for approximating Graphic TSP. Specifically, we provide a polynomial-time \frac{9}{7}-approximation algorithm for cubic bipartite graphs and a (\frac{9}{7}+\frac{1}{21(k-2)})-approximation algorithm for k-regular bipartite graphs, both of which are improved approximation factors compared to previous results. Our approach involves finding a cycle cover with relatively few cycles, which we are able to do by leveraging the fact that all cycles in bipartite graphs are of even length along with our knowledge of the structure of cubic graphs.
Let $G$ be a cyclically $5$-connected cubic graph with a $5$-edge-cut separating $G$ into two cyclic components $G_1$ and $G_2$. We prove that each component $G_i$ can be completed to a cyclically $5$-connected cubic graph by adding three vertices, unless $G_i$ is a cycle of length five. Our work extends similar results by Andersen et al. for cyclic connectivity $4$ from 1988.
We conjecture that the balanced complete bipartite graph $K_{\lfloor n/2 \rfloor,\lceil n/2 \rceil}$ contains more cycles than any other $n$-vertex triangle-free graph, and we make some progress toward proving this. We give equivalent conditions for cycle-maximal triangle-free graphs; show bounds on the numbers of cycles in graphs depending on numbers of vertices and edges, girth, and homomorphisms to small fixed graphs; and use the bounds to show that among regular graphs, the conjecture holds. We also consider graphs that are close to being regular, with the minimum and maximum degrees diffe…
Let $H$ be a cubic graph admitting a 3-edge-coloring $c: E(H)\to \mathbb Z_3$ such that the edges colored by 0 and $μ\in\{1,2\}$ induce a Hamilton circuit of $H$ and the edges colored by 1 and 2 induce a 2-factor $F$. The graph $H$ is semi-Kotzig if switching colors of edges in any even subgraph of $F$ yields a new 3-edge-coloring of $H$ having the same property as $c$. A spanning subgraph $H$ of a cubic graph $G$ is called a {\em semi-Kotzig frame} if the contracted graph $G/H$ is even and every non-circuit component of $H$ is a subdivision of a semi-Kotzig graph. In this paper, we show that …
We characterise the quartic (i.e. 4-regular) multigraphs with the property that every edge lies in a triangle. The main result is that such graphs are either squares of cycles, line multigraphs of cubic multigraphs, or are obtained from these by a number of simple subgraph-replacement operations. A corollary of this is that a simple quartic graph with every edge in a triangle is either the square of a cycle, the line graph of a cubic graph or a graph obtained from the line multigraph of a cubic multigraph by replacing triangles with copies of K_{1,1,3}.
A graph is called hypohamiltonian if it is not hamiltonian but becomes hamiltonian if any vertex is removed. Many hypohamiltonian planar cubic graphs have been found, starting with constructions of Thomassen in 1981. However, all the examples found until now had 4-cycles. In this note we present the first examples of hypohamiltonian planar cubic graphs with cyclic connectivity five, and thus girth five. We show by computer search that the smallest members of this class are three graphs with 76 vertices.
Several results in tropical geometry have related the j-invariant of an algebraic plane curve of genus one to the cycle length of a tropical curve of genus one. In this paper, we prove that for a plane cubic over the field of Puiseux series the negative of the generic valuation of the $j$-invariant is equal to the cycle length of the tropicalization of the curve, if there is a cycle at all.
In this paper, some results concerning the colorings of graph powers are presented. The notion of helical graphs is introduced. We show that such graphs are hom-universal with respect to high odd-girth graphs whose $(2t+1)$st power is bounded by a Kneser graph. Also, we consider the problem of existence of homomorphism to odd cycles. We prove that such homomorphism to a $(2k+1)$-cycle exists if and only if the chromatic number of the $(2k+1)$st power of $S_2(G)$ is less than or equal to 3, where $S_2(G)$ is the 2-subdivision of $G$. We also consider Nešetřil's Pentagon problem. This problem is…
A signed graph is a graph $G$ associated with a mapping $σ: E(G)\to \{-1,+1\}$, denoted by $(G,σ)$. A $cycle$ of $(G,σ)$ is a connected 2-regular subgraph. A cycle $C$ is $positive$ if it has an even number of negative edges, and negative otherwise. A $circuit$ of of a signed graph $(G,σ)$ is a positive cycle or a barbell consisting of two edge-disjoint negative cycles joined by a path. The definition of a circuit of signed graph comes from the signed-graphic matroid. A circuit cover of $(G,σ)$ is a family of circuits covering all edges of $(G,σ)$. A circuit cover with the smallest total lengt…