A note on a conjecture concerning tree-partitioning 3-regular graphs

If G is a 4-connected maximal planar graph, then G is hamiltonian (by a theorem of Whitney), implying that its dual graph G∗ is a cyclically 4-edge connected 3regular planar graph admitting a partition of the vertex set into two parts, each inducing a tree in G∗, a so-called tree-partition. It is a natural question whether each cyclically 4-edge connected 3-regular graph admits such a tree-partition. This was conjectured by Jaeger, and recently independently by the first author. The main result of this note shows that each connected 3-regular graph on n vertices admits a partition of the vertex set into two sets such that precisely 1 2n+2 edges have end vertices in each set. This is a necessary condition for having a tree-partition. We also show that not all cyclically 3-edge connected 3-regular (planar) graphs admit a tree-partition, and present the smallest counterexamples.