Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-computer-science-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2023/combinatorial-optimisation/3/b/ii/solution
Past exam of the computer science course of the University of Oxford 2023 Combinatorial optimisation 3 b ii Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
Choose a perfect matching from (i). Every vertex has exactly two incident edges in , so this spanning subgraph is a disjoint union of graph cycles. Orient each graph cycle cyclically, and let be the next vertex after along its oriented graph cycle.
For each , take the three-edge sequenceIts four vertices are distinct. Each and because the graph is a simple graph. Also and , since belongs to , rather than . Finally because the successor map is a bijection on the disjoint graph cycles. Thus this is a graph path of length exactly three.
Every edge of is used once as a middle edge. Every edge of is used once as the outgoing edge of its tail, whose unique edge of determines which graph path contains it. Hence these graph paths are pairwise edge-disjoint and cover . This is the three-edge path decomposition from a perfect matching.
On a triangular prism, orient the two remaining graph cycles and extend each perfect matching edge by its endpoints' outgoing edges; the three colors partition all nine edges into length-three graph paths
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