REDUCTION OF THE BERGE-FULKERSON CONJECTURE TO CYCLICALLY 5-EDGE-CONNECTED SNARKS

The Berge-Fulkerson conjecture, originally formulated in the language of mathematical programming, asserts that the edges of every bridgeless cubic (3-valent) graph can be covered with six perfect matchings in such a way that every edge is in exactly two of them. As with several other classical conjectures in graph theory, every counterexample to the Berge-Fulkerson conjecture must be a non-3-edge-colorable cubic graph. In contrast to Tutte's 5-flow conjecture and the cycle double conjecture, no nontrivial reduction is known for the Berge-Fulkerson conjecture. In the present paper, we prove that a possible minimum counterexample to the conjecture must be cyclically 5-edge-connected