The parity of a thicket (Q405214)

Summary: A thicket in a graph \(G\) is defined as a set of even circuits such that every edge lies in an even number of them. If \(G\) is directed, then each circuit in the thicket has a well defined directed parity. The parity of the thicket is the sum of the parities of its members, and is independent of the orientation of \(G\). We study the problem of determining the parity of a thicket \(\mathcal{T}\) in terms of structural properties of \(\mathcal{T}\). Specifically, we reduce the problem to studying the case where the underlying graph \(G\) is cubic. In this case we solve the problem if \(|\mathcal{T}| = 3\) or \(G\) is bipartite. Some applications to the problem of characterising Pfaffian graphs are also considered.