Notes on complexity of packing coloring

A packing $k$-coloring for some integer $k$ of a graph $G=(V,E)$ is a mapping $\varphi:V\to\{1,\ldots,k\}$ such that any two vertices $u, v$ of color $\varphi(u)=\varphi(v)$ are in distance at least $\varphi(u)+1$. This concept is motivated by frequency assignment problems. The \emph{packing chromatic number} of $G$ is the smallest $k$ such that there exists a packing $k$-coloring of $G$. Fiala and Golovach showed that determining the packing chromatic number for chordal graphs is \NP-complete for diameter exactly 5. While the problem is easy to solve for diameter 2, we show \NP-completeness for any diameter at least 3. Our reduction also shows that the packing chromatic number is hard to approximate within $n^{{1/2}-\varepsilon}$ for any $\varepsilon > 0$. In addition, we design an \FPT algorithm for interval graphs of bounded diameter. This leads us to exploring the problem of finding a partial coloring that maximizes the number of colored vertices.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure

Dichotomies properties on computational complexity of S-packing coloring problems

This work establishes the complexity class of several instances of the S-packing coloring problem: for a graph G, a positive integer k and a non decreasing list of integers S = (s\_1 , ..., s\_k ), G is S-colorable, if its vertices can be partitioned into sets S\_i , i = 1,... , k, where each S\_i being a s\_i -packing (a set of vertices at pairwise distance greater than s\_i). For a list of three integers, a dichotomy between NP-complete problems and polynomial time solvable problems is determined for subcubic graphs. Moreover, for an unfixed size of list, the complexity of the S-packing coloring problem is determined for several instances of the problem. These properties are used in order to prove a dichotomy between NP-complete problems and polynomial time solvable problems for lists of at most four integers

Packing Coloring of Undirected and Oriented Generalized Theta Graphs

The packing chromatic number $\chi$ $\rho$ (G) of an undirected (resp. oriented) graph G is the smallest integer k such that its set of vertices V (G) can be partitioned into k disjoint subsets V 1,..., V k, in such a way that every two distinct vertices in V i are at distance (resp. directed distance) greater than i in G for every i, 1 $\le$ i $\le$ k. The generalized theta graph $\Theta$ {\ell} 1,...,{\ell}p consists in two end-vertices joined by p $\ge$ 2 internally vertex-disjoint paths with respective lengths 1 $\le$ {\ell} 1 $\le$ . . . $\le$ {\ell} p. We prove that the packing chromatic number of any undirected generalized theta graph lies between 3 and max{5, n 3 + 2}, where n 3 = |{i / 1 $\le$ i $\le$ p, {\ell} i = 3}|, and that both these bounds are tight. We then characterize undirected generalized theta graphs with packing chromatic number k for every k $\ge$ 3. We also prove that the packing chromatic number of any oriented generalized theta graph lies between 2 and 5 and that both these bounds are tight.Comment: Revised version. Accepted for publication in Australas. J. Combi

An Exact Algorithm for the Generalized List TT-Coloring Problem

The generalized list $T$-coloring is a common generalization of many graph coloring models, including classical coloring, $L(p,q)$-labeling, channel assignment and $T$-coloring. Every vertex from the input graph has a list of permitted labels. Moreover, every edge has a set of forbidden differences. We ask for such a labeling of vertices of the input graph with natural numbers, in which every vertex gets a label from its list of permitted labels and the difference of labels of the endpoints of each edge does not belong to the set of forbidden differences of this edge. In this paper we present an exact algorithm solving this problem, running in time $\mathcal{O}^*((\tau+2)^n)$, where $\tau$ is the maximum forbidden difference over all edges of the input graph and $n$ is the number of its vertices. Moreover, we show how to improve this bound if the input graph has some special structure, e.g. a bounded maximum degree, no big induced stars or a perfect matching

A Landscape Analysis of Constraint Satisfaction Problems

We discuss an analysis of Constraint Satisfaction problems, such as Sphere Packing, K-SAT and Graph Coloring, in terms of an effective energy landscape. Several intriguing geometrical properties of the solution space become in this light familiar in terms of the well-studied ones of rugged (glassy) energy landscapes. A `benchmark' algorithm naturally suggested by this construction finds solutions in polynomial time up to a point beyond the `clustering' and in some cases even the `thermodynamic' transitions. This point has a simple geometric meaning and can be in principle determined with standard Statistical Mechanical methods, thus pushing the analytic bound up to which problems are guaranteed to be easy. We illustrate this for the graph three and four-coloring problem. For Packing problems the present discussion allows to better characterize the `J-point', proposed as a systematic definition of Random Close Packing, and to place it in the context of other theories of glasses.Comment: 17 pages, 69 citations, 12 figure