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Directed Cycle Double Cover Conjecture: Fork Graphs

We explore the well-known Jaeger's directed cycle double cover conjecture which is equivalent to the assertion that every cubic bridgeless graph has an embedding on a closed orientable surface with no dual loop. We associate each cubic graph G with a novel object H that we call a "hexagon graph"; perfect matchings of H describe all embeddings of G on closed orientable surfaces. The study of hexagon graphs leads us to define a new class of graphs that we call "lean fork-graphs". Fork graphs are cubic bridgeless graphs obtained from a triangle by sequentially connecting fork-type graphs and performing Y-Delta, Delta-Y transformations; lean fork-graphs are fork graphs fulfilling a connectivity property. We prove that Jaeger's conjecture holds for the class of lean fork-graphs. The class of lean fork-graphs is rich; namely, for each cubic bridgeless graph G there is a lean fork-graph containing a subdivision of G as an induced subgraph. Our results establish for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, the validity of Jaeger's conjecture in a broad inductively defined class of graphs.