Vizing's adjacency lemma on edge chromatic critical signed graphs and its applications (Q2686135)

A (proper) edge coloring of a graph is a function assigning values (colors) to the edges of the graph in such a way that any two adjacent edges receive different colors. A graph is edge \(k\)-colorable if there is an edge coloring of the graph with colors from \(C=\{1,\dots,k\}\). A finite simple graph \(G\) of maximum degree \(\Delta\) is of class one if it is edge \(\Delta\)-colorable. In the study of edge colorings of ordinary graphs, Vizing's adjacency lemma plays a crucial role. Here, the authors extend Vizing's adjacency lemma to critical signed graphs with even maximum degrees. As an application, they also show that the signed planar graph conjecture is true for signed planar graphs with maximum degree at least \(8\) and that every \(k\)-degenerate signed graph with maximum degree at least \(2k\) is of class one. The study of edge colorings of signed graphs just started recently and there are not many results in this field. For example, so far, the authors still do not know the edge chromatic number of signed complete graphs and signed bipartite graphs. In general, the authors pose some questions. It is interesting and useful to researchers working on signed graphs and their allied areas.