2,458 research outputs found
A general framework for coloring problems: old results, new results, and open problems
In this survey paper we present a general framework for coloring problems that was introduced in a joint paper which the author presented at WG2003. We show how a number of different types of coloring problems, most of which have been motivated from frequency assignment, fit into this framework. We give a survey of the existing results, mainly based on and strongly biased by joint work of the author with several different groups of coauthors, include some new results, and discuss several open problems for each of the variants
On vertex coloring without monochromatic triangles
We study a certain relaxation of the classic vertex coloring problem, namely,
a coloring of vertices of undirected, simple graphs, such that there are no
monochromatic triangles. We give the first classification of the problem in
terms of classic and parametrized algorithms. Several computational complexity
results are also presented, which improve on the previous results found in the
literature. We propose the new structural parameter for undirected, simple
graphs -- the triangle-free chromatic number . We bound by
other known structural parameters. We also present two classes of graphs with
interesting coloring properties, that play pivotal role in proving useful
observation about our problem. We give/ask several conjectures/questions
throughout this paper to encourage new research in the area of graph coloring.Comment: Extended abstrac
-WORM colorings of graphs: Lower chromatic number and gaps in the chromatic spectrum
A -WORM coloring of a graph is an assignment of colors to the
vertices in such a way that the vertices of each -subgraph of get
precisely two colors. We study graphs which admit at least one such
coloring. We disprove a conjecture of Goddard et al. [Congr. Numer., 219 (2014)
161--173] who asked whether every such graph has a -WORM coloring with two
colors. In fact for every integer there exists a -WORM colorable
graph in which the minimum number of colors is exactly . There also exist
-WORM colorable graphs which have a -WORM coloring with two colors
and also with colors but no coloring with any of colors. We
also prove that it is NP-hard to determine the minimum number of colors and
NP-complete to decide -colorability for every (and remains
intractable even for graphs of maximum degree 9 if ). On the other hand,
we prove positive results for -degenerate graphs with small , also
including planar graphs. Moreover we point out a fundamental connection with
the theory of the colorings of mixed hypergraphs. We list many open problems at
the end.Comment: 18 page
Backbone colorings along perfect matchings
Given a graph and a spanning subgraph of (the backbone of ), a backbone coloring for and is a proper vertex coloring of in which the colors assigned to adjacent vertices in differ by at least two. In a recent paper, backbone colorings were introduced and studied in cases were the backbone is either a spanning tree or a spanning path. Here we study the case where the backbone is a perfect matching. We show that for perfect matching backbones of the number of colors needed for a backbone coloring of can roughly differ by a multiplicative factor of at most from the chromatic number . We show that the computational complexity of the problem ``Given a graph with a perfect matching , and an integer , is there a backbone coloring for and with at most colors?'' jumps from polynomial to NP-complete between and . Finally, we consider the case where is a planar graph
Conflict-Free Coloring of Planar Graphs
A conflict-free k-coloring of a graph assigns one of k different colors to
some of the vertices such that, for every vertex v, there is a color that is
assigned to exactly one vertex among v and v's neighbors. Such colorings have
applications in wireless networking, robotics, and geometry, and are
well-studied in graph theory. Here we study the natural problem of the
conflict-free chromatic number chi_CF(G) (the smallest k for which
conflict-free k-colorings exist). We provide results both for closed
neighborhoods N[v], for which a vertex v is a member of its neighborhood, and
for open neighborhoods N(v), for which vertex v is not a member of its
neighborhood.
For closed neighborhoods, we prove the conflict-free variant of the famous
Hadwiger Conjecture: If an arbitrary graph G does not contain K_{k+1} as a
minor, then chi_CF(G) <= k. For planar graphs, we obtain a tight worst-case
bound: three colors are sometimes necessary and always sufficient. We also give
a complete characterization of the computational complexity of conflict-free
coloring. Deciding whether chi_CF(G)<= 1 is NP-complete for planar graphs G,
but polynomial for outerplanar graphs. Furthermore, deciding whether
chi_CF(G)<= 2 is NP-complete for planar graphs G, but always true for
outerplanar graphs. For the bicriteria problem of minimizing the number of
colored vertices subject to a given bound k on the number of colors, we give a
full algorithmic characterization in terms of complexity and approximation for
outerplanar and planar graphs.
For open neighborhoods, we show that every planar bipartite graph has a
conflict-free coloring with at most four colors; on the other hand, we prove
that for k in {1,2,3}, it is NP-complete to decide whether a planar bipartite
graph has a conflict-free k-coloring. Moreover, we establish that any general}
planar graph has a conflict-free coloring with at most eight colors.Comment: 30 pages, 17 figures; full version (to appear in SIAM Journal on
Discrete Mathematics) of extended abstract that appears in Proceeedings of
the Twenty-Eighth Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA
2017), pp. 1951-196
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