A Conjecture Generalizing Thomassen’s Chord Conjecture in Graph Theory

Thomassen’s chord conjecture from 1976 states that every longest cycle in a 3-connected graph has a chord. This is one of the most important unsolved problems in graph theory. We pose a new conjecture which implies Thomassen’s conjecture. It involves bound vertices in a longest path between two vertices in a k-connected graph. We also give supporting evidence and analyze a special case. The purpose of making this new conjecture is to explore the surroundings of Thomassen’s conjecture.