A graph G is perfect if for every induced subgraph H, the chromatic number of H equals the size of the largest complete subgraph of H, and G is Berge if no induced subgraph of G is an odd cycle of length at least five or the complement of one. The “strong perfect graph conjecture” (Berge, 1961) asserts that a graph is perfect if and only if it is Berge. A stronger conjecture was made recently by Conforti, Cornuéjols and Vuˇsković — that every Berge graph either falls into one of a few basic classes, or admits one of a few kinds of separation (designed so that a minimum counterexample to Berge’s conjecture cannot have either of these properties). In this paper we prove both these conjectures.

Abstract. This is a foundational paper in tropical linear algebra, which is linear algebra over the min-plus semiring. We introduce and compare three natural definitions of the rank of a matrix, called the Barvinok rank, the Kapranov rank and the tropical rank. We demonstrate how these notions arise naturally in polyhedral and algebraic geometry, and we show that they differ in general. Realizability of matroids plays a crucial role here. Connections to optimization are also discussed. 1.

A square real matrix is sign-nonsingular if it is forced to be nonsingular by its pattern of zero, negative, and positive entries. We give structural characterizations of sign-nonsingular matrices, digraphs with no even length dicycles, and square nonnegative real matrices whose permanent and determinant are equal. The structural characterizations, which are topological in nature, imply polynomial algorithms. 1

The second author thanks the University of Klagenfurt for its hospitality while this research was undertaken.

We show that a graph has an orientation under which every circuit of even length is clockwise odd if and only if the graph contains no subgraph which is, after the contraction of at most one circuit of odd length, an even subdivision of K 2,3 .Infact we give a more general characterisation of graphs that have an orientation under which every even circuit has a prescribed clockwise parity. Moreover we show that this characterisation has an equivalent analogue for signed graphs. We were

Abstract. We prove a technical theorem about the numbers of crossings in T-joins in different drawings of a fixed graph. As a corollary we characterize Pfaffian graphs in terms of their drawings in the plane and give a new proof of a theorem of Kleitman on the parity of crossings in drawings of K2j+1 and K2j+1,2k+1. This gives a new proof of the Hanani-Tutte theorem. 1.

The permanent-determinant method and its generalization, the HafnianPfa #an method, are methods to enumerate perfect matchings of plane graphs that were discovered by P. W. Kasteleyn. We present several new techniques and arguments related to the permanent-determinant with consequences in enumerative combinatorics. Here are some of the results that follow from these techniques: 1. If a bipartite graph on the sphere with 4n vertices is invariant under the antipodal map, the number of matchings is the square of the number of matchings of the quotient graph. 2. The number of matchings of the edge graph of a graph with vertices of degree at most 3 is a power of 2. 3. The three Carlitz matrices whose determinants count a b c plane partitions all have the same cokernel. 4. Two symmetry classes of plane partitions can be enumerated with almost no calculation. Submitted: October 16, 1998; Accepted: November 9, 1998 [Also available as math.CO/9810091] The permanent-determinan...

A graph is perfect if for every induced subgraph, the chromatic number is equal to the maximum size of a complete subgraph. The class of perfect graphs is important for several reasons. For instance, many problems of interest in practice but intractable in general can be solved e#ciently when restricted to the class of perfect graphs. Also, the question of when a certain class of linear programs always have an integer solution can be answered in terms of perfection of an associated graph. In the first

A graph is a minor of another if the first can be obtained from a subgraph of the second by contracting edges. An excluded minor theorem describes the structure of graphs with no minor isomorphic to a prescribed set of graphs. Splitter theorems are tools for proving excluded minor theorems. We discuss splitter theorems for internally 4-connected graphs and for cyclically 5-connected cubic graphs, the graph minor theorem of Robertson and Seymour, linkless embeddings of graphs in 3-space, Hadwiger’s conjecture on t-colorability of graphs with no Kt+1 minor, Tutte’s edge 3-coloring conjecture on edge 3-colorability of 2-connected cubic graphs with no Petersen minor, and Pfaffian orientations of bipartite graphs. The latter are related to the even directed circuit problem, a problem of Pólya about permanents, the 2-colorability of hypergraphs, and sign-nonsingular matrices.

We give a polynomial-time algorithm for the following problem of Pólya. Given an n × n 0-1 matrix, either find a matrix obtained from it by changing some of the 1’s to −1’s in such a way that the determinant of the new matrix equals the permanent of the old one, or determine that no such matrix exists. This is equivalent to finding Pfaffian orientations of bipartite graphs and to the even circuit problem for directed graphs. The algorithm is based on a structural characterization of bipartite graphs that admit a Pfaffian orientation.