Constructive Characterization of Critical Bipartite Grafts

TL;DR

This paper introduces critical quasicombs as bipartite graft analogues of factor-critical graphs and provides a constructive ear decomposition characterization, extending classical matching theory concepts to bipartite grafts.

Contribution

It develops a new concept of critical quasicombs and offers a graft version of ear decompositions, generalizing Lovász's characterization to bipartite grafts.

Findings

Constructive characterization of critical quasicombs using graft ear decompositions.

Generalization of Dulmage-Mendelsohn decomposition to bipartite grafts.

Extension of factor-critical graph theory to bipartite grafts.

Abstract

Factor-critical graphs are a classical concept in matching theory that constitute an important component of the Gallai-Edmonds canonical decomposition and Edmonds' algorithm for maximum matchings. Lov\'asz provided a constructive characterization of factor-critical graphs in terms of ear decompositions. This characterization has been a useful inductive tool for studying factor-critical graphs and also connects them with Edmonds' algorithm. Joins in grafts, also known as $T$-joins in graphs, are a classical variant of matchings proposed in terms of parity. Minimum joins and grafts are generalizations of perfect matchings and graphs with perfect matchings, respectively. Accordingly, graft analogues of fundamental concepts and results from matching theory, such as canonical decompositions, will develop the theory of minimum join. In this paper, we propose a new concept, critical quasicombs, as a bipartite graft analogue of factor-critical graphs and provide a constructive characterization of critical quasicombs using a graft version of ear decompositions. This characterization can be considered as a bipartite graft analogue of Lov\'asz' result. From our results, the Dulmage-Mendelsohn canonical decomposition, originally a theory for bipartite graphs, has been generalized for bipartite grafts.