Conjectures on uniquely 3-edge-colorable graphs

A graph $G$ is {\it uniquely k-edge-colorable} if the chromatic index of $G$ is $k$ and every two $k$-edge-colorings of $G$ produce the same partition of $E(G)$ into $k$ independent subsets.For any $k\ne 3$, a uniquely $k$-edge-colorable graph $G$ is completely characterized;$G\cong K_2$ if $k=1$, $G$ is a path or an even cycle if $k=2$,and $G$ is a star $K_{1,k}$ if $k\geq 4$.On the other hand, there are infinitely many uniquely 3-edge-colorable graphs, and hence, there are many conjectures for the characterization of uniquely 3-edge-colorable graphs.In this paper, we introduce a new conjecture which connects conjectures of uniquely 3-edge-colorable planar graphs with those of uniquely 3-edge-colorable non-planar graphs

Planar graph coloring avoiding monochromatic subgraphs: trees and paths make things difficult

We consider the problem of coloring a planar graph with the minimum number of colors such that each color class avoids one or more forbidden graphs as subgraphs. We perform a detailed study of the computational complexity of this problem

Asymmetric 22-colorings of graphs

We show that the edges of every 3-connected planar graph except $K_4$ can be colored with two colors in such a way that the graph has no color preserving automorphisms. Also, we characterize all graphs which have the property that their edges can be $2$-colored so that no matter how the graph is embedded in any orientable surface, there is no homeomorphism of the surface which induces a non-trivial color preserving automorphism of the graph

Conflict-Free Coloring of Planar Graphs

A conflict-free k-coloring of a graph assigns one of k different colors to some of the vertices such that, for every vertex v, there is a color that is assigned to exactly one vertex among v and v's neighbors. Such colorings have applications in wireless networking, robotics, and geometry, and are well-studied in graph theory. Here we study the natural problem of the conflict-free chromatic number chi_CF(G) (the smallest k for which conflict-free k-colorings exist). We provide results both for closed neighborhoods N[v], for which a vertex v is a member of its neighborhood, and for open neighborhoods N(v), for which vertex v is not a member of its neighborhood. For closed neighborhoods, we prove the conflict-free variant of the famous Hadwiger Conjecture: If an arbitrary graph G does not contain K_{k+1} as a minor, then chi_CF(G) <= k. For planar graphs, we obtain a tight worst-case bound: three colors are sometimes necessary and always sufficient. We also give a complete characterization of the computational complexity of conflict-free coloring. Deciding whether chi_CF(G)<= 1 is NP-complete for planar graphs G, but polynomial for outerplanar graphs. Furthermore, deciding whether chi_CF(G)<= 2 is NP-complete for planar graphs G, but always true for outerplanar graphs. For the bicriteria problem of minimizing the number of colored vertices subject to a given bound k on the number of colors, we give a full algorithmic characterization in terms of complexity and approximation for outerplanar and planar graphs. For open neighborhoods, we show that every planar bipartite graph has a conflict-free coloring with at most four colors; on the other hand, we prove that for k in {1,2,3}, it is NP-complete to decide whether a planar bipartite graph has a conflict-free k-coloring. Moreover, we establish that any general} planar graph has a conflict-free coloring with at most eight colors.Comment: 30 pages, 17 figures; full version (to appear in SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics) of extended abstract that appears in Proceeedings of the Twenty-Eighth Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA 2017), pp. 1951-196