Fractional coloring planar graphs under Steinberg-type conditions (Q6113758)

A Steinberg-type conjecture on circular coloring recently proposed that for any prime \(p\geq 5\), every planar graph of girth \(p\) without cycles of length \(q\), with \(p+1\leq q\leq p(p-2)\), is \(C_p\)-colorable (that is to say, it admits a homomorphism to the cycle \(C_p\)). This conjecture implies a special case of \textit{F. Jaeger}'s conjecture [in: Selected topics in graph theory, Vol. 3, 71--95 (1988; Zbl 0658.05034)] that every planar graph of girth \(2p-2\) is \(C_p\)-colorable for prime \(p\geq 5\). In this paper, the authors show that the fractional coloring version of this conjecture is true. Particularly, their result for the case \(p=5\) shows that every planar graph of girth \(5\) without cycles of length from \(6\) to \(15\) admits a homomorphism to the Petersen graph.