Distance-two coloring of sparse graphs

Consider a graph $G = (V, E)$ and, for each vertex $v \in V$, a subset $\Sigma(v)$ of neighbors of $v$. A $\Sigma$-coloring is a coloring of the elements of $V$ so that vertices appearing together in some $\Sigma(v)$ receive pairwise distinct colors. An obvious lower bound for the minimum number of colors in such a coloring is the maximum size of a set $\Sigma(v)$, denoted by $\rho(\Sigma)$. In this paper we study graph classes $F$ for which there is a function $f$, such that for any graph $G \in F$ and any $\Sigma$, there is a $\Sigma$-coloring using at most $f(\rho(\Sigma))$ colors. It is proved that if such a function exists for a class $F$, then $f$ can be taken to be a linear function. It is also shown that such classes are precisely the classes having bounded star chromatic number. We also investigate the list version and the clique version of this problem, and relate the existence of functions bounding those parameters to the recently introduced concepts of classes of bounded expansion and nowhere-dense classes.Comment: 13 pages - revised versio

Rank-width and Tree-width of H-minor-free Graphs

We prove that for any fixed r>=2, the tree-width of graphs not containing K_r as a topological minor (resp. as a subgraph) is bounded by a linear (resp. polynomial) function of their rank-width. We also present refinements of our bounds for other graph classes such as K_r-minor free graphs and graphs of bounded genus.Comment: 17 page

On First-Order Definable Colorings

We address the problem of characterizing $H$-coloring problems that are first-order definable on a fixed class of relational structures. In this context, we give several characterizations of a homomorphism dualities arising in a class of structure

Modulo-Counting First-Order Logic on Bounded Expansion Classes

We prove that, on bounded expansion classes, every first-order formula with modulo counting is equivalent, in a linear-time computable monadic lift, to an existential first-order formula. As a consequence, we derive, on bounded expansion classes, that first-order transductions with modulo counting have the same encoding power as existential first-order transductions. Also, modulo-counting first-order model checking and computation of the size of sets definable in modulo-counting first-order logic can be achieved in linear time on bounded expansion classes. As an application, we prove that a class has structurally bounded expansion if and only if is a class of bounded depth vertex-minors of graphs in a bounded expansion class. We also show how our results can be used to implement fast matrix calculus on bounded expansion matrices over a finite field.Comment: submitted to CSGT2022 special issu

Strong modeling limits of graphs with bounded tree-width

The notion of first order convergence of graphs unifies the notions of convergence for sparse and dense graphs. Ne\v{s}et\v{r}il and Ossona de Mendez [J. Symbolic Logic 84 (2019), 452--472] proved that every first order convergent sequence of graphs from a nowhere-dense class of graphs has a modeling limit and conjectured the existence of such modeling limits with an additional property, the strong finitary mass transport principle. The existence of modeling limits satisfying the strong finitary mass transport principle was proved for first order convergent sequences of trees by Ne\v{s}et\v{r}il and Ossona de Mendez [Electron. J. Combin. 23 (2016), P2.52] and for first order sequences of graphs with bounded path-width by Gajarsk\'y et al. [Random Structures Algorithms 50 (2017), 612--635]. We establish the existence of modeling limits satisfying the strong finitary mass transport principle for first order convergent sequences of graphs with bounded tree-width.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1504.0812