Matching covered graphs with three removable classes (Q405203)

Summary: The notion of removable classes arises in connection with ear decompositions of matching covered graphs introduced by \textit{L. Lovász} and \textit{M. D. Plummer} [Matching theory. Providence, RI: AMS Chelsea Publishing (2009; Zbl 1175.05002)]. The last (single or double) ear of an ear decomposition is defined as a removable class. Every matching covered graph not induced by a circuit has at least three removable classes. In this paper, we characterize matching covered graphs with precisely three removable classes and show, as a corollary, that every non-planar matching covered graph has at least four removable classes. Let \(G\) be a matching covered graph. A matching covered subgraph \(H\) of \(G\) is conformal if \(G-VH\) has a perfect matching. Given \(S \subseteq EG\), what is a minimal conformal subgraph of \(G\) that contains \(S\)? It is known that if \(|S|=2\) then it is induced by a circuit. As an application of the main result, we answer this question for \(|S|=3\).