Coloring directed cycles

Sopena in his survey [E. Sopena, The oriented chromatic number of graphs: A short survey, preprint 2013] writes, without any proof, that an oriented cycle $\vec C$ can be colored with three colors if and only if $\lambda(\vec C)=0$, where $\lambda(\vec C)$ is the number of forward arcs minus the number of backward arcs in $\vec C$. This is not true. In this paper we show that $\vec C$ can be colored with three colors if and only if $\lambda(\vec C)=0(\bmod~3)$ or $\vec C$ does not contain three consecutive arcs going in the same direction

The Oriented Chromatic Number of the Hexagonal Grid is 6

The oriented chromatic number of a directed graph $G$ is the minimum order of an oriented graph to which $G$ has a homomorphism. The oriented chromatic number $\chi_o({\cal F})$ of a graph family ${\cal F}$ is the maximum oriented chromatic number over any orientation of any graph in ${\cal F}$. For the family of hexagonal grids ${\cal H}_2$, Bielak (2006) proved that $5 \le \chi_o({\cal H}_2) \le 6$. Here we close the gap by showing that $\chi_o({\cal H}_2) \ge 6$.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Upper oriented chromatic number of undirected graphs and oriented colorings of product graphs

The oriented chromatic number of an oriented graph $\vec G$ is the minimum order of an oriented graph \vev H such that $\vec G$ admits a homomorphism to \vev H. The oriented chromatic number of an undirected graph $G$ is then the greatest oriented chromatic number of its orientations. In this paper, we introduce the new notion of the upper oriented chromatic number of an undirected graph $G$, defined as the minimum order of an oriented graph \vev U such that every orientation $\vec G$ of $G$ admits a homomorphism to $\vec U$. We give some properties of this parameter, derive some general upper bounds on the ordinary and upper oriented chromatic numbers of Cartesian, strong, direct and lexicographic products of graphs, and consider the particular case of products of paths.Comment: 14 page

Acyclic edge coloring of subcubic graphs

AbstractAn acyclic edge coloring of a graph is a proper edge coloring such that there are no bichromatic cycles. The acyclic chromatic index of a graph is the minimum number k such that there is an acyclic edge coloring using k colors and it is denoted by a′(G). From a result of Burnstein it follows that all subcubic graphs are acyclically edge colorable using five colors. This result is tight since there are 3-regular graphs which require five colors. In this paper we prove that any non-regular connected graph of maximum degree 3 is acyclically edge colorable using at most four colors. This result is tight since all edge maximal non-regular connected graphs of maximum degree 3 require four colors

Colourings of (m,n)(m, n)-coloured mixed graphs

A mixed graph is, informally, an object obtained from a simple undirected graph by choosing an orientation for a subset of its edges. A mixed graph is $(m, n)$-coloured if each edge is assigned one of $m \geq 0$ colours, and each arc is assigned one of $n \geq 0$ colours. Oriented graphs are $(0, 1)$-coloured mixed graphs, and 2-edge-coloured graphs are $(2, 0)$-coloured mixed graphs. We show that results of Sopena for vertex colourings of oriented graphs, and of Kostochka, Sopena and Zhu for vertex colourings oriented graphs and 2-edge-coloured graphs, are special cases of results about vertex colourings of $(m, n)$-coloured mixed graphs. Both of these can be regarded as a version of Brooks' Theorem.Comment: 7 pages, no figure