Improved bounds on coloring of graphs

Given a graph $G$ with maximum degree $\Delta\ge 3$, we prove that the acyclic edge chromatic number $a'(G)$ of $G$ is such that $a'(G)\le\lceil 9.62 (\Delta-1)\rceil$. Moreover we prove that: $a'(G)\le \lceil 6.42(\Delta-1)\rceil$ if $G$ has girth $g\ge 5\,$; a'(G)\le \lceil5.77 (\Delta-1)\rc if $G$ has girth $g\ge 7$; a'(G)\le \lc4.52(\D-1)\rc if $g\ge 53$; a'(G)\le \D+2\, if g\ge \lceil25.84\D\log\D(1+ 4.1/\log\D)\rceil. We further prove that the acyclic (vertex) chromatic number $a(G)$ of $G$ is such that a(G)\le \lc 6.59 \Delta^{4/3}+3.3\D\rc. We also prove that the star-chromatic number $\chi_s(G)$ of $G$ is such that \chi_s(G)\le \lc4.34\Delta^{3/2}+ 1.5\D\rc. We finally prove that the \b-frugal chromatic number \chi^\b(G) of $G$ is such that \chi^\b(G)\le \lc\max\{k_1(\b)\D,\; k_2(\b){\D^{1+1/\b}/ (\b!)^{1/\b}}\}\rc, where k_1(\b) and k_2(\b) are decreasing functions of \b such that k_1(\b)\in[4, 6] and k_2(\b)\in[2,5]. To obtain these results we use an improved version of the Lov\'asz Local Lemma due to Bissacot, Fern\'andez, Procacci and Scoppola \cite{BFPS}.Comment: Introduction revised. Added references. Corrected typos. Proof of Theorem 2 (items c-f) written in more detail

Linear transformation distance for bichromatic matchings

Let $P=B\cup R$ be a set of $2n$ points in general position, where $B$ is a set of $n$ blue points and $R$ a set of $n$ red points. A \emph{$BR$-matching} is a plane geometric perfect matching on $P$ such that each edge has one red endpoint and one blue endpoint. Two $BR$-matchings are compatible if their union is also plane. The \emph{transformation graph of $BR$-matchings} contains one node for each $BR$-matching and an edge joining two such nodes if and only if the corresponding two $BR$-matchings are compatible. In SoCG 2013 it has been shown by Aloupis, Barba, Langerman, and Souvaine that this transformation graph is always connected, but its diameter remained an open question. In this paper we provide an alternative proof for the connectivity of the transformation graph and prove an upper bound of $2n$ for its diameter, which is asymptotically tight

Spanners for Geometric Intersection Graphs

Efficient algorithms are presented for constructing spanners in geometric intersection graphs. For a unit ball graph in R^k, a (1+\epsilon)-spanner is obtained using efficient partitioning of the space into hypercubes and solving bichromatic closest pair problems. The spanner construction has almost equivalent complexity to the construction of Euclidean minimum spanning trees. The results are extended to arbitrary ball graphs with a sub-quadratic running time. For unit ball graphs, the spanners have a small separator decomposition which can be used to obtain efficient algorithms for approximating proximity problems like diameter and distance queries. The results on compressed quadtrees, geometric graph separators, and diameter approximation might be of independent interest.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, Late