Edge Partitions of Complete Geometric Graphs (Part 1)

08/11/2021

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by   Johannes Obenaus, et al.

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In this paper, we disprove the long-standing conjecture that any complete geometric graph on 2n vertices can be partitioned into n plane spanning trees. Our construction is based on so-called bumpy wheel sets. We fully characterize which bumpy wheels can and in particular which cannot be partitioned into plane spanning trees (or even into arbitrary plane subgraphs), including a complete description of all possible partitions (into plane spanning trees). Furthermore, we show a sufficient condition for generalized wheels to not admit a partition into plane spanning trees, and give a complete characterization when they admit a partition into plane spanning double stars.