Bricks in which every vertex is incident with a forcing edge

Abstract

A matching covered graph is a brick if it is 3-connected and bicritical. An edge of a matching covered graph G is a forcing edge if it lies in precisely one perfect matching of G. We prove that every vertex of a simple brick G is incident with a forcing edge if and only if G is an odd wheel or is isomorphic to one of the following three graphs: the triangular prism \overline{C_6},\overline{C_6}^+ or the bicorn H_8. Here \overline{C_6}^+ is obtained from \overline{C_6} by adding an edge between two nonadjacent vertices.

arXiv comment16 pages,4 figures