Regular colorings and factors of regular graphs

Abstract

An $(r-1,1)$-coloring of an $r$-regular graph $G$ is an edge coloring such that each vertex is incident to $r-1$ edges of one color and $1$ edge of a different color. In this paper, we completely characterize all $4$-regular pseudographs (graphs that may contain parallel edges and loops) which do not have a $(3,1)$-coloring. An $\{r-1,1\}$-factor of an $r$-regular graph is a spanning subgraph in which each vertex has degree either $r-1$ or $1$. We prove various conditions that that must hold for any vertex-minimal $5$-regular pseudographs without $(4,1)$-colorings or without $\{4,1\}$-factors. Finally, for each $r\geq 6$ we construct graphs that are not $(r-1,1)$-colorable and, more generally, are not $(r-t,t)$-colorable for small $t$.