3,940 research outputs found
On the order of countable graphs
A set of graphs is said to be independent if there is no homomorphism between
distinct graphs from the set. We consider the existence problems related to the
independent sets of countable graphs. While the maximal size of an independent
set of countable graphs is 2^omega the On Line problem of extending an
independent set to a larger independent set is much harder. We prove here that
singletons can be extended (``partnership theorem''). While this is the best
possible in general, we give structural conditions which guarantee independent
extensions of larger independent sets. This is related to universal graphs,
rigid graphs and to the density problem for countable graphs
-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
Local Graph Coloring and Index Coding
We present a novel upper bound for the optimal index coding rate. Our bound
uses a graph theoretic quantity called the local chromatic number. We show how
a good local coloring can be used to create a good index code. The local
coloring is used as an alignment guide to assign index coding vectors from a
general position MDS code. We further show that a natural LP relaxation yields
an even stronger index code. Our bounds provably outperform the state of the
art on index coding but at most by a constant factor.Comment: 14 Pages, 3 Figures; A conference version submitted to ISIT 2013;
typos correcte
Topological lower bounds for the chromatic number: A hierarchy
This paper is a study of ``topological'' lower bounds for the chromatic
number of a graph. Such a lower bound was first introduced by Lov\'asz in 1978,
in his famous proof of the \emph{Kneser conjecture} via Algebraic Topology.
This conjecture stated that the \emph{Kneser graph} \KG_{m,n}, the graph with
all -element subsets of as vertices and all pairs of
disjoint sets as edges, has chromatic number . Several other proofs
have since been published (by B\'ar\'any, Schrijver, Dolnikov, Sarkaria, Kriz,
Greene, and others), all of them based on some version of the Borsuk--Ulam
theorem, but otherwise quite different. Each can be extended to yield some
lower bound on the chromatic number of an arbitrary graph. (Indeed, we observe
that \emph{every} finite graph may be represented as a generalized Kneser
graph, to which the above bounds apply.)
We show that these bounds are almost linearly ordered by strength, the
strongest one being essentially Lov\'asz' original bound in terms of a
neighborhood complex. We also present and compare various definitions of a
\emph{box complex} of a graph (developing ideas of Alon, Frankl, and Lov\'asz
and of \kriz). A suitable box complex is equivalent to Lov\'asz' complex, but
the construction is simpler and functorial, mapping graphs with homomorphisms
to -spaces with -maps.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure. Jahresbericht der DMV, to appea
Generalisation : graphs and colourings
The interaction between practice and theory in mathematics is a central theme. Many mathematical structures and theories result from the formalisation of a real problem. Graph Theory is rich with such examples. The graph structure itself was formalised by Leonard Euler in the quest to solve the problem of the Bridges of Kƶnigsberg. Once a structure is formalised, and results are proven, the mathematician seeks to generalise. This can be considered as one of the main praxis in mathematics. The idea of generalisation will be illustrated through graph colouring. This idea also results from a classic problem, in which it was well known by topographers that four colours suffice to colour any map such that no countries sharing a border receive the same colour. The proof of this theorem eluded mathematicians for centuries and was proven in 1976. Generalisation of graphs to hypergraphs, and variations on the colouring theme will be discussed, as well as applications in other disciplines.peer-reviewe
Graphs with tiny vector chromatic numbers and huge chromatic numbers
Karger, Motwani, and Sudan [J. ACM, 45 (1998), pp. 246-265] introduced the notion of a vector coloring of a graph. In particular, they showed that every k-colorable graph is also vector k-colorable, and that for constant k, graphs that are vector k-colorable can be colored by roughly Ī^(1 - 2/k) colors. Here Ī is the maximum degree in the graph and is assumed to be of the order of n^5 for some 0 < Ī“ < 1. Their results play a major role in the best approximation algorithms used for coloring and for maximum independent sets. We show that for every positive integer k there are graphs that are vector k-colorable but do not have independent sets significantly larger than n/Ī^(1- 2/k) (and hence cannot be colored with significantly fewer than Ī^(1-2/k) colors). For k = O(log n/log log n) we show vector k-colorable graphs that do not have independent sets of size (log n)^c, for some constant c. This shows that the vector chromatic number does not approximate the chromatic number within factors better than n/polylogn.
As part of our proof, we analyze "property testing" algorithms that distinguish between graphs that have an independent set of size n/k, and graphs that are "far" from having such an independent set. Our bounds on the sample size improve previous bounds of Goldreich, Goldwasser, and Ron [J. ACM, 45 (1998), pp. 653-750] for this problem
- ā¦