Odd-Cycle-Free Facet Complexes and the K\"onig property

Abstract

We use the definition of a simplicial cycle to define an odd-cycle-free facet complex (hypergraph). These are facet complexes that do not contain any cycles of odd length. We show that besides one class of such facet complexes, all of them satisfy the K\"onig property. This new family of complexes includes the family of balanced hypergraphs, which are known to satisfy the K\"onig property. These facet complexes are, however, not Mengerian; we give an example to demonstrate this fact.