New near-factorizations of finite groups

Abstract

The attempts to construct a counterexample to the Strong Perfect Graph Conjecture yielded the notion of partitionable graphs as minimal imperfect graphs; then near-factorizations of finite groups gained some interest since from any near-factorization some partitionable graphs can be constructed in a natural way. Recently, the proof of SPGC was declared by Chudnovsky, Robertson, Seymour and Thomas [3], but near-factorizations remain interesting on their own rights as (i) rare objects being “close” to factorizations of groups; and (ii) they yield graphs with surprising properties.