On cyclic edge-connectivity of fullerenes

A graph is said to be cyclic k-edge-connected, if at least k edges must be removed to disconnect it into two components, each containing a cycle. Such a set of k edges is called a cyclic-k-edge cutset and it is called a trivial cyclic-k-edge cutset if at least one of the resulting two components induces a single k-cycle. It is known that fullerenes, that is, 3-connected cubic planar graphs all of whose faces are pentagons and hexagons, are cyclic 5-edge-connected. In this article it is shown that a fullerene F containing a nontrivial cyclic-5-edge cutset admits two antipodal pentacaps, that is, two antipodal pentagonal faces whose neighboring faces are also pentagonal. Moreover, it is shown that F has a Hamilton cycle, and as a consequence at least 15 ·2 n 20 ⌋ perfect matchings, where n is the order of F .