The topological theory of current graphs

W. Gustin's introduction of combinatorial current graphs as a device for obtaining orientable imbeddings of Cayley “color” graphs was fundamental to the solution of the Heawood map-coloring problem by G. Ringel, J. W. T. Youngs, C. M. Terry, and L. R. Welch. The topological current graphs of this paper lead to a construction that generalizes the method of Gustin and its augmentation to “vortex” graphs by Youngs, extending the scope of current graph theory from Cayley graphs alone to the much larger class of graphs that are covering spaces.