Three-Bit Flows and Cycle Covers. Part I
arXiv:2607.14140
The paper links three-bit nowhere-zero flows, labeled triangles, and cycle double covers in bridgeless multigraphs, showing that compatible local labels produce a cycle double cover and thereby proving the cycle double cover conjecture.
Abstract
We study the relationship between nowhere-zero three-bit flows, labeled triangles, and cycle double covers of bridgeless multigraphs. Using the flow theorems of Seymour and Tutte, we realize the three flow values at each vertex as the side differences of a triangle whose sides carry two-element subsets of $\F_2^3$. We express agreement of these local labels across graph edges as a binary system and prove its solvability by an inconsistency certificate, a local tester-parity identity, and a global double count. The resulting compatible labels trace cycle components in which every edge occurs exactly twice, proving that every finite bridgeless multigraph has a cycle double cover, proving the cycle double cover conjecture.