Supereulerian 2-edge-coloured graphs

Abstract

A 2-edge-coloured graph $G$ is {\bf supereulerian} if $G$ contains a spanning closed trail in which the edges alternate in colours. An {\bf eulerian factor} of a 2-edge-coloured graph is a collection of vertex disjoint induced subgraphs which cover all the vertices of $G$ such that each of these subgraphs is supereulerian. We give a polynomial algorithm to test if a 2-edge-coloured graph has an eulerian factor and to produce one when it exists. A 2-edge-coloured graph is {\bf (trail-)colour-connected} if it contains a pair of alternating $(u,v)$-paths ($(u,v)$-trails) whose union is an alternating closed walk for every pair of distinct vertices $u,v$. A 2-edge-coloured graph is {\bf M-closed} if $xz$ is an edge of $G$ whenever some vertex $u$ is joined to both $x$ and $z$ by edges of the same colour. M-closed 2-edge-coloured graphs, introduced in \cite{balbuenaDMTCS21}, form a rich generalization of 2-edge-coloured complete graphs. We show that if $G$ is an extension of an M-closed 2-edge-coloured complete graph, then $G$ is supereulerian if and only if $G$ is trail-colour-connected and has an eulerian factor. We also show that for general 2-edge-coloured graphs it is NP-complete to decide whether the graph is supereulerian. Finally we pose a number of open problems.