On coloring parameters of triangle-free planar (n,m)(n,m)-graphs

An $(n,m)$-graph is a graph with $n$ types of arcs and $m$ types of edges. A homomorphism of an $(n,m)$-graph $G$ to another $(n,m)$-graph $H$ is a vertex mapping that preserves the adjacencies along with their types and directions. The order of a smallest (with respect to the number of vertices) such $H$ is the $(n,m)$-chromatic number of $G$.Moreover, an $(n,m)$-relative clique $R$ of an $(n,m)$-graph $G$ is a vertex subset of $G$ for which no two distinct vertices of $R$ get identified under any homomorphism of $G$. The $(n,m)$-relative clique number of $G$, denoted by $\omega_{r(n,m)}(G)$, is the maximum $|R|$ such that $R$ is an $(n,m)$-relative clique of $G$. In practice, $(n,m)$-relative cliques are often used for establishing lower bounds of $(n,m)$-chromatic number of graph families. Generalizing an open problem posed by Sopena [Discrete Mathematics 2016] in his latest survey on oriented coloring, Chakroborty, Das, Nandi, Roy and Sen [Discrete Applied Mathematics 2022] conjectured that $\omega_{r(n,m)}(G) \leq 2 (2n+m)^2 + 2$ for any triangle-free planar $(n,m)$-graph $G$ and that this bound is tight for all $(n,m) \neq (0,1)$.In this article, we positively settle this conjecture by improving the previous upper bound of $\omega_{r(n,m)}(G) \leq 14 (2n+m)^2 + 2$ to $\omega_{r(n,m)}(G) \leq 2 (2n+m)^2 + 2$, and by finding examples of triangle-free planar graphs that achieve this bound. As a consequence of the tightness proof, we also establish a new lower bound of $2 (2n+m)^2 + 2$ for the $(n,m)$-chromatic number for the family of triangle-free planar graphs.Comment: 22 Pages, 5 figure

Ramsey-nice families of graphs

For a finite family $\mathcal{F}$ of fixed graphs let $R_k(\mathcal{F})$ be the smallest integer $n$ for which every $k$-coloring of the edges of the complete graph $K_n$ yields a monochromatic copy of some $F\in\mathcal{F}$. We say that $\mathcal{F}$ is $k$-nice if for every graph $G$ with $\chi(G)=R_k(\mathcal{F})$ and for every $k$-coloring of $E(G)$ there exists a monochromatic copy of some $F\in\mathcal{F}$. It is easy to see that if $\mathcal{F}$ contains no forest, then it is not $k$-nice for any $k$. It seems plausible to conjecture that a (weak) converse holds, namely, for any finite family of graphs $\mathcal{F}$ that contains at least one forest, and for all $k\geq k_0(\mathcal{F})$ (or at least for infinitely many values of $k$), $\mathcal{F}$ is $k$-nice. We prove several (modest) results in support of this conjecture, showing, in particular, that it holds for each of the three families consisting of two connected graphs with 3 edges each and observing that it holds for any family $\mathcal{F}$ containing a forest with at most 2 edges. We also study some related problems and disprove a conjecture by Aharoni, Charbit and Howard regarding the size of matchings in regular 3-partite 3-uniform hypergraphs.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figure

Hamilton cycles in graphs and hypergraphs: an extremal perspective

As one of the most fundamental and well-known NP-complete problems, the Hamilton cycle problem has been the subject of intensive research. Recent developments in the area have highlighted the crucial role played by the notions of expansion and quasi-randomness. These concepts and other recent techniques have led to the solution of several long-standing problems in the area. New aspects have also emerged, such as resilience, robustness and the study of Hamilton cycles in hypergraphs. We survey these developments and highlight open problems, with an emphasis on extremal and probabilistic approaches.Comment: to appear in the Proceedings of the ICM 2014; due to given page limits, this final version is slightly shorter than the previous arxiv versio

Combinatorial Properties of Triangle-Free Rectangle Arrangements and the Squarability Problem

We consider arrangements of axis-aligned rectangles in the plane. A geometric arrangement specifies the coordinates of all rectangles, while a combinatorial arrangement specifies only the respective intersection type in which each pair of rectangles intersects. First, we investigate combinatorial contact arrangements, i.e., arrangements of interior-disjoint rectangles, with a triangle-free intersection graph. We show that such rectangle arrangements are in bijection with the 4-orientations of an underlying planar multigraph and prove that there is a corresponding geometric rectangle contact arrangement. Moreover, we prove that every triangle-free planar graph is the contact graph of such an arrangement. Secondly, we introduce the question whether a given rectangle arrangement has a combinatorially equivalent square arrangement. In addition to some necessary conditions and counterexamples, we show that rectangle arrangements pierced by a horizontal line are squarable under certain sufficient conditions.Comment: 15 pages, 13 figures, extended version of a paper to appear at the International Symposium on Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (GD) 201

{\Gamma}-species, quotients, and graph enumeration

The theory of {\Gamma}-species is developed to allow species-theoretic study of quotient structures in a categorically rigorous fashion. This new approach is then applied to two graph-enumeration problems which were previously unsolved in the unlabeled case-bipartite blocks and general k-trees.Comment: 84 pages, 10 figures, dissertatio

The complexity of deciding whether a graph admits an orientation with fixed weak diameter

International audienceAn oriented graph $\overrightarrow{G}$ is said weak (resp. strong) if, for every pair $\{ u,v \}$ of vertices of $\overrightarrow{G}$, there are directed paths joining $u$ and $v$ in either direction (resp. both directions). In case, for every pair of vertices, some of these directed paths have length at most $k$, we call $\overrightarrow{G}$ $k$-weak (resp. $k$-strong). We consider several problems asking whether an undirected graph $G$ admits orientations satisfying some connectivity and distance properties. As a main result, we show that deciding whether $G$ admits a $k$-weak orientation is NP-complete for every $k \geq 2$. This notably implies the NP-completeness of several problems asking whether $G$ is an extremal graph (in terms of needed colours) for some vertex-colouring problems