Coloring intersection graphs of arc-connected sets in the plane

A family of sets in the plane is simple if the intersection of its any subfamily is arc-connected, and it is pierced by a line $L$ if the intersection of its any member with $L$ is a nonempty segment. It is proved that the intersection graphs of simple families of compact arc-connected sets in the plane pierced by a common line have chromatic number bounded by a function of their clique number.Comment: Minor changes + some additional references not included in the journal versio

Coloring triangle-free rectangle overlap graphs with O(log⁡log⁡n)O(\log\log n) colors

Recently, it was proved that triangle-free intersection graphs of $n$ line segments in the plane can have chromatic number as large as $\Theta(\log\log n)$. Essentially the same construction produces $\Theta(\log\log n)$-chromatic triangle-free intersection graphs of a variety of other geometric shapes---those belonging to any class of compact arc-connected sets in $\mathbb{R}^2$ closed under horizontal scaling, vertical scaling, and translation, except for axis-parallel rectangles. We show that this construction is asymptotically optimal for intersection graphs of boundaries of axis-parallel rectangles, which can be alternatively described as overlap graphs of axis-parallel rectangles. That is, we prove that triangle-free rectangle overlap graphs have chromatic number $O(\log\log n)$, improving on the previous bound of $O(\log n)$. To this end, we exploit a relationship between off-line coloring of rectangle overlap graphs and on-line coloring of interval overlap graphs. Our coloring method decomposes the graph into a bounded number of subgraphs with a tree-like structure that "encodes" strategies of the adversary in the on-line coloring problem. Then, these subgraphs are colored with $O(\log\log n)$ colors using a combination of techniques from on-line algorithms (first-fit) and data structure design (heavy-light decomposition).Comment: Minor revisio

Coloring Intersection Graphs of Arc-Connected Sets in the Plane

A family of sets in the plane is simple if the intersection of any subfamily is arc-connected, and it is pierced by a line $$L$$ L if the intersection of any member with $$L$$ L is a nonempty segment. It is proved that the intersection graphs of simple families of compact arc-connected sets in the plane pierced by a common line have chromatic number bounded by a function of their clique number

Triangle-free geometric intersection graphs with large chromatic number

Several classical constructions illustrate the fact that the chromatic number of a graph can be arbitrarily large compared to its clique number. However, until very recently, no such construction was known for intersection graphs of geometric objects in the plane. We provide a general construction that for any arc-connected compact set $X$ in $\mathbb{R}^2$ that is not an axis-aligned rectangle and for any positive integer $k$ produces a family $\mathcal{F}$ of sets, each obtained by an independent horizontal and vertical scaling and translation of $X$, such that no three sets in $\mathcal{F}$ pairwise intersect and $\chi(\mathcal{F})>k$. This provides a negative answer to a question of Gyarfas and Lehel for L-shapes. With extra conditions, we also show how to construct a triangle-free family of homothetic (uniformly scaled) copies of a set with arbitrarily large chromatic number. This applies to many common shapes, like circles, square boundaries, and equilateral L-shapes. Additionally, we reveal a surprising connection between coloring geometric objects in the plane and on-line coloring of intervals on the line.Comment: Small corrections, bibliography updat

Decomposition of multiple packings with subquadratic union complexity

Suppose $k$ is a positive integer and $\mathcal{X}$ is a $k$-fold packing of the plane by infinitely many arc-connected compact sets, which means that every point of the plane belongs to at most $k$ sets. Suppose there is a function $f(n)=o(n^2)$ with the property that any $n$ members of $\mathcal{X}$ determine at most $f(n)$ holes, which means that the complement of their union has at most $f(n)$ bounded connected components. We use tools from extremal graph theory and the topological Helly theorem to prove that $\mathcal{X}$ can be decomposed into at most $p$ ($1$-fold) packings, where $p$ is a constant depending only on $k$ and $f$.Comment: Small generalization of the main result, improvements in the proofs, minor correction

Conflict-Free Coloring of Intersection Graphs of Geometric Objects

In FOCS'2002, Even et al. introduced and studied the notion of conflict-free colorings of geometrically defined hypergraphs. They motivated it by frequency assignment problems in cellular networks. This notion has been extensively studied since then. A conflict-free coloring of a graph is a coloring of its vertices such that the neighborhood (pointed or closed) of each vertex contains a vertex whose color differs from the colors of all other vertices in that neighborhood. In this paper we study conflict-colorings of intersection graphs of geometric objects. We show that any intersection graph of n pseudo-discs in the plane admits a conflict-free coloring with O(\log n) colors, with respect to both closed and pointed neighborhoods. We also show that the latter bound is asymptotically sharp. Using our methods, we also obtain a strengthening of the two main results of Even et al. which we believe is of independent interest. In particular, in view of the original motivation to study such colorings, this strengthening suggests further applications to frequency assignment in wireless networks. Finally, we present bounds on the number of colors needed for conflict-free colorings of other classes of intersection graphs, including intersection graphs of axis-parallel rectangles and of \rho-fat objects in the plane.Comment: 18 page

Coloring curves that cross a fixed curve

We prove that for every integer $t\geq 1$, the class of intersection graphs of curves in the plane each of which crosses a fixed curve in at least one and at most $t$ points is $\chi$-bounded. This is essentially the strongest $\chi$-boundedness result one can get for this kind of graph classes. As a corollary, we prove that for any fixed integers $k\geq 2$ and $t\geq 1$, every $k$-quasi-planar topological graph on $n$ vertices with any two edges crossing at most $t$ times has $O(n\log n)$ edges.Comment: Small corrections, improved presentatio