The anti-oberwolfach solution: Pancyclic 2-factorizations of complete graphs

Abstract

We pose and completely solve the existence of pancyclic 2-factorizations of complete graphs and complete bipartite graphs. Such 2-factorizations exist for all such graphs, except a few small cases which we have proved are impossible. The solution method is simple but powerful. The pancyclic problem is intended to showcase the power this method offers to solve a wide range of 2-factorization problems. Indeed, these methods go a long way towards being able to produce arbitrary 2-factorizations with one or two cycles per factor. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2000.