Graph Factors and Factorization: 1985–2003: a Survey Michael D
Discrete Mathematics 307 (2007) 791–821 www.elsevier.com/locate/disc Perspectives Graph factors and factorization: 1985–2003: A survey Michael D. Plummer Department of Mathematics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37240, USA Received 29 January 2004; received in revised form 13 September 2004; accepted 22 November 2005 Available online 16 October 2006 Dedicated to the memory of Peter Owens Abstract In the most general sense, a factor of a graph G is just a spanning subgraph of G and a graph factorization of G is a partition of the edges of G into factors. However, as we shall see in the present paper, even this extremely general definition does not capture all the factor and factorization problems that have been studied in graph theory. Several previous survey papers have been written on this subject [F. Chung, R. Graham, Recent results in graph decompositions, London Mathematical Society, Lecture Note Series, vol. 52, Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 103–123; J. Akiyama, M. Kano, Factors and factorizations of graphs—a survey, J. Graph Theory 9 (1985) 1–42; L. Volkmann, Regular graphs, regular factors, and the impact of Petersen’s theorems, Jahresber. Deutsch. Math.-Verein. 97 (1995) 19–42] as well as an entire book on graph decompositions [J. Bosák, Decompositions of Graphs, Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, Dordrecht, 1990]. Our purpose here is to concentrate primarily on surveying the developments of the last 15–20 years in this exponentially growing field. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Factor; Factorization; Matching 1. Introduction A subgraph H of a graph (multigraph, general graph) G,isafactor of G if H is a spanning subgraph of G.
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