Triangle Decompositions of Planar Graphs

Abstract

A multigraph G is triangle decomposable if its edge set can be partitioned into subsets, each of which induces a triangle of G, and rationally triangle decomposable if its triangles can be assigned rational weights such that for each edge e of G, the sum of the weights of the triangles that contain e equals 1. We present a necessary and sufficient condition for a planar multigraph to be triangle decomposable. We also show that if a simple planar graph is rationally triangle decomposable, then it has such a decomposition using only weights 0,1 and 1/2. This result provides a characterization of rationally triangle decomposable simple planar graphs. Finally, if G is a multigraph with the complete graph of order 4 as underlying graph, we give necessary and sufficient conditions on the multiplicities of its edges for G to be triangle and rationally triangle decomposable.