On a conjecture of Keedwell and the cycle double cover conjecture

Abstract

At the 16th British Combinatorial Conference (1997), Cameron introduced a new concept called 2-simultaneous coloring. He used this concept to reformulate a conjecture of Keedwell (1994) on the existence of critical partial latin squares of a given type. Using computer programs, we have verified the truth of the above conjecture (the SE conjecture) for all graphs having less than 29 edges. In this paper we prove that SE conjecture is a consequence of the well-known oriented cycle double cover conjecture. This connection helps us to prove that the SE conjecture is true for semieulerian graphs.