Acyclic edge coloring of subcubic graphs

AbstractAn acyclic edge coloring of a graph is a proper edge coloring such that there are no bichromatic cycles. The acyclic chromatic index of a graph is the minimum number k such that there is an acyclic edge coloring using k colors and it is denoted by a′(G). From a result of Burnstein it follows that all subcubic graphs are acyclically edge colorable using five colors. This result is tight since there are 3-regular graphs which require five colors. In this paper we prove that any non-regular connected graph of maximum degree 3 is acyclically edge colorable using at most four colors. This result is tight since all edge maximal non-regular connected graphs of maximum degree 3 require four colors

Grad and classes with bounded expansion I. decompositions

We introduce classes of graphs with bounded expansion as a generalization of both proper minor closed classes and degree bounded classes. Such classes are based on a new invariant, the greatest reduced average density (grad) of G with rank r, grad r(G). For these classes we prove the existence of several partition results such as the existence of low tree-width and low tree-depth colorings. This generalizes and simplifies several earlier results (obtained for minor closed classes)