The Frank number and nowhere-zero flows on graphs

Abstract

An edge $e$ of a graph $G$ is called deletable for some orientation $o$ if the restriction of $o$ to $G-e$ is a strong orientation. Inspired by a problem of Frank, in 2021 Hörsch and Szigeti proposed a new parameter for 3-edge-connected graphs, called the Frank number, which refines $k$-edge-connectivity. The Frank number is defined as the minimum number of orientations of $G$ for which every edge of $G$ is deletable in at least one of them. They showed that every 3-edge-connected graph has Frank number at most 7 and that in case these graphs are also 5-edge-colourable the parameter is at most 3. Here we strengthen both results by showing that every 3-edge-connected graph has Frank number at most 4 and that every graph which is 3-edge-connected and 3-edge-colourable has Frank number 2. The latter also confirms a conjecture by Barát and Blázsik. Furthermore, we prove two sufficient conditions for cubic graphs to have Frank number 2 and use them in an algorithm to computationally show that the Petersen graph is the only cyclically 4-edge-connected cubic graph up to 36 vertices having Frank number greater than 2.