Fine structure of 4-critical triangle-free graphs III. General surfaces

Dvo\v{r}\'ak, Kr\'al' and Thomas gave a description of the structure of triangle-free graphs on surfaces with respect to 3-coloring. Their description however contains two substructures (both related to graphs embedded in plane with two precolored cycles) whose coloring properties are not entirely determined. In this paper, we fill these gaps.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figure; corrections from the review process. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1509.0101

Three-coloring triangle-free graphs on surfaces V. Coloring planar graphs with distant anomalies

We settle a problem of Havel by showing that there exists an absolute constant d such that if G is a planar graph in which every two distinct triangles are at distance at least d, then G is 3-colorable. In fact, we prove a more general theorem. Let G be a planar graph, and let H be a set of connected subgraphs of G, each of bounded size, such that every two distinct members of H are at least a specified distance apart and all triangles of G are contained in \bigcup{H}. We give a sufficient condition for the existence of a 3-coloring phi of G such that for every B\in H, the restriction of phi to B is constrained in a specified way.Comment: 26 pages, no figures. Updated presentatio

Three-coloring triangle-free graphs on surfaces III. Graphs of girth five

We show that the size of a 4-critical graph of girth at least five is bounded by a linear function of its genus. This strengthens the previous bound on the size of such graphs given by Thomassen. It also serves as the basic case for the description of the structure of 4-critical triangle-free graphs embedded in a fixed surface, presented in a future paper of this series.Comment: 53 pages, 7 figures; updated according to referee remark

Three-coloring triangle-free graphs on surfaces II. 4-critical graphs in a disk

Let G be a plane graph of girth at least five. We show that if there exists a 3-coloring phi of a cycle C of G that does not extend to a 3-coloring of G, then G has a subgraph H on O(|C|) vertices that also has no 3-coloring extending phi. This is asymptotically best possible and improves a previous bound of Thomassen. In the next paper of the series we will use this result and the attendant theory to prove a generalization to graphs on surfaces with several precolored cycles.Comment: 48 pages, 4 figures This version: Revised according to reviewer comment

Three-coloring triangle-free graphs on surfaces I. Extending a coloring to a disk with one triangle

Let G be a plane graph with exactly one triangle T and all other cycles of length at least 5, and let C be a facial cycle of G of length at most six. We prove that a 3-coloring of C does not extend to a 3-coloring of G if and only if C has length exactly six and there is a color x such that either G has an edge joining two vertices of C colored x, or T is disjoint from C and every vertex of T is adjacent to a vertex of C colored x. This is a lemma to be used in a future paper of this series

Three-coloring triangle-free graphs on surfaces II. 4-critical graphs in a disk

Let G be a plane graph of girth at least five. We show that if there exists a 3-coloring of a cycle C of G that does not extend to a 3-coloring of G, then G has a subgraph H on O(|C|) vertices that also has no 3-coloring extending. This is asymptotically best possible and improves a previous bound of Thomassen. In the next paper of the series we will use this result and the attendant theory to prove a generalization to graphs on surfaces with several precolored cycles