Complexity of C_k-Coloring in Hereditary Classes of Graphs

For a graph F, a graph G is F-free if it does not contain an induced subgraph isomorphic to F. For two graphs G and H, an H-coloring of G is a mapping f:V(G) -> V(H) such that for every edge uv in E(G) it holds that f(u)f(v)in E(H). We are interested in the complexity of the problem H-Coloring, which asks for the existence of an H-coloring of an input graph G. In particular, we consider H-Coloring of F-free graphs, where F is a fixed graph and H is an odd cycle of length at least 5. This problem is closely related to the well known open problem of determining the complexity of 3-Coloring of P_t-free graphs. We show that for every odd k >= 5 the C_k-Coloring problem, even in the precoloring-extension variant, can be solved in polynomial time in P_9-free graphs. On the other hand, we prove that the extension version of C_k-Coloring is NP-complete for F-free graphs whenever some component of F is not a subgraph of a subdivided claw

Clustered Graph Coloring and Layered Treewidth

A graph coloring has bounded clustering if each monochromatic component has bounded size. This paper studies clustered coloring, where the number of colors depends on an excluded complete bipartite subgraph. This is a much weaker assumption than previous works, where typically the number of colors depends on an excluded minor. This paper focuses on graph classes with bounded layered treewidth, which include planar graphs, graphs of bounded Euler genus, graphs embeddable on a fixed surface with a bounded number of crossings per edge, amongst other examples. Our main theorem says that for fixed integers $s,t,k$, every graph with layered treewidth at most $k$ and with no $K_{s,t}$ subgraph is $(s+2)$-colorable with bounded clustering. In the $s=1$ case, which corresponds to graphs of bounded maximum degree, we obtain polynomial bounds on the clustering. This greatly improves a corresponding result of Esperet and Joret for graphs of bounded genus. The $s=3$ case implies that every graph with a drawing on a fixed surface with a bounded number of crossings per edge is 5-colorable with bounded clustering. Our main theorem is also a critical component in two companion papers that study clustered coloring of graphs with no $K_{s,t}$-subgraph and excluding a fixed minor, odd minor or topological minor

Twin chromatic indices of some graphs with maximum degree 3

Let k ≥ 2 be an integer and G be a connected graph of order at least 3. A twin k-edge coloring of G is a proper edge coloring of G that uses colors from k and that induces a proper vertex coloring on G where the color of a vertex v is the sum (in k ) of the colors of the edges incident with v. The smallest integer k for which G has a twin k-edge coloring is the twin chromatic index of G and is denoted by . In this paper, we determine the twin chromatic indices of circulant graphs , and some generalized Petersen graphs such as GP(3s, k), GP(m, 2), and GP(4s, l) where n ≥ 6 and n ≡ 0 (mod 4), s ≥ 1, k ≢ 0 (mod 3), m ≥ 3 and m {4, 5}, and l is odd. Moreover, we provide some sufficient conditions for a connected graph with maximum degree 3 to have twin chromatic index greater than 3

Kőnig's Line Coloring and Vizing's Theorems for Graphings

The classical theorem of Vizing states that every graph of maximum degree d admits an edge coloring with at most d+1 colors. Furthermore, as it was earlier shown by Kőnig, d colors suffice if the graph is bipartite. We investigate the existence of measurable edge colorings for graphings (or measure-preserving graphs). A graphing is an analytic generalization of a bounded-degree graph that appears in various areas, such as sparse graph limits, orbit equivalence and measurable group theory. We show that every graphing of maximum degree d admits a measurable edge coloring with d+O(d−−√) colors; furthermore, if the graphing has no odd cycles, then d+1 colors suffice. In fact, if a certain conjecture about finite graphs that strengthens Vizing’s theorem is true, then our method will show that d+1 colors are always enough