A Unified Approach to Distance-Two Colouring of Graphs on Surfaces

In this paper we introduce the notion of $\Sigma$-colouring of a graph $G$: For given subsets $\Sigma(v)$ of neighbours of $v$, for every $v\in V(G)$, this is a proper colouring of the vertices of $G$ such that, in addition, vertices that appear together in some $\Sigma(v)$ receive different colours. This concept generalises the notion of colouring the square of graphs and of cyclic colouring of graphs embedded in a surface. We prove a general result for graphs embeddable in a fixed surface, which implies asymptotic versions of Wegner's and Borodin's Conjecture on the planar version of these two colourings. Using a recent approach of Havet et al., we reduce the problem to edge-colouring of multigraphs, and then use Kahn's result that the list chromatic index is close to the fractional chromatic index. Our results are based on a strong structural lemma for graphs embeddable in a fixed surface, which also implies that the size of a clique in the square of a graph of maximum degree $\Delta$ embeddable in some fixed surface is at most $\frac32\,\Delta$ plus a constant.Comment: 36 page

Coloring decompositions of complete geometric graphs

A decomposition of a non-empty simple graph $G$ is a pair $[G,P]$, such that $P$ is a set of non-empty induced subgraphs of $G$, and every edge of $G$ belongs to exactly one subgraph in $P$. The chromatic index $\chi'([G,P])$ of a decomposition $[G,P]$ is the smallest number $k$ for which there exists a $k$-coloring of the elements of $P$ in such a way that: for every element of $P$ all of its edges have the same color, and if two members of $P$ share at least one vertex, then they have different colors. A long standing conjecture of Erd\H{o}s-Faber-Lov\'asz states that every decomposition $[K_n,P]$ of the complete graph $K_n$ satisfies $\chi'([K_n,P])\leq n$. In this paper we work with geometric graphs, and inspired by this formulation of the conjecture, we introduce the concept of chromatic index of a decomposition of the complete geometric graph. We present bounds for the chromatic index of several types of decompositions when the vertices of the graph are in general position. We also consider the particular case in which the vertices are in convex position and present bounds for the chromatic index of a few types of decompositions.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figure

Some results on (a:b)-choosability

A solution to a problem of Erd\H{o}s, Rubin and Taylor is obtained by showing that if a graph $G$ is $(a:b)$-choosable, and $c/d > a/b$, then $G$ is not necessarily $(c:d)$-choosable. Applying probabilistic methods, an upper bound for the $k^{th}$ choice number of a graph is given. We also prove that a directed graph with maximum outdegree $d$ and no odd directed cycle is $(k(d+1):k)$-choosable for every $k \geq 1$. Other results presented in this article are related to the strong choice number of graphs (a generalization of the strong chromatic number). We conclude with complexity analysis of some decision problems related to graph choosability

Generation and Properties of Snarks

For many of the unsolved problems concerning cycles and matchings in graphs it is known that it is sufficient to prove them for \emph{snarks}, the class of nontrivial 3-regular graphs which cannot be 3-edge coloured. In the first part of this paper we present a new algorithm for generating all non-isomorphic snarks of a given order. Our implementation of the new algorithm is 14 times faster than previous programs for generating snarks, and 29 times faster for generating weak snarks. Using this program we have generated all non-isomorphic snarks on $n\leq 36$ vertices. Previously lists up to $n=28$ vertices have been published. In the second part of the paper we analyze the sets of generated snarks with respect to a number of properties and conjectures. We find that some of the strongest versions of the cycle double cover conjecture hold for all snarks of these orders, as does Jaeger's Petersen colouring conjecture, which in turn implies that Fulkerson's conjecture has no small counterexamples. In contrast to these positive results we also find counterexamples to eight previously published conjectures concerning cycle coverings and the general cycle structure of cubic graphs.Comment: Submitted for publication V2: various corrections V3: Figures updated and typos corrected. This version differs from the published one in that the Arxiv-version has data about the automorphisms of snarks; Journal of Combinatorial Theory. Series B. 201

The strong chromatic index of 1-planar graphs

The chromatic index $\chi'(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the smallest $k$ for which $G$ admits an edge $k$-coloring such that any two adjacent edges have distinct colors. The strong chromatic index $\chi'_s(G)$ of $G$ is the smallest $k$ such that $G$ has a proper edge $k$-coloring with the condition that any two edges at distance at most 2 receive distinct colors. A graph is 1-planar if it can be drawn in the plane so that each edge is crossed by at most one other edge. In this paper, we show that every graph $G$ with maximum average degree $\bar{d}(G)$ has $\chi'_{s}(G)\le (2\bar{d}(G)-1)\chi'(G)$. As a corollary, we prove that every 1-planar graph $G$ with maximum degree $\Delta$ has $\chi'_{\rm s}(G)\le 14\Delta$, which improves a result, due to Bensmail et al., which says that $\chi'_{\rm s}(G)\le 24\Delta$ if $\Delta\ge 56$

Some snarks are worse than others

Many conjectures and open problems in graph theory can either be reduced to cubic graphs or are directly stated for cubic graphs. Furthermore, it is known that for a lot of problems, a counterexample must be a snark, i.e. a bridgeless cubic graph which is not 3--edge-colourable. In this paper we deal with the fact that the family of potential counterexamples to many interesting conjectures can be narrowed even further to the family ${\cal S}_{\geq 5}$ of bridgeless cubic graphs whose edge set cannot be covered with four perfect matchings. The Cycle Double Cover Conjecture, the Shortest Cycle Cover Conjecture and the Fan-Raspaud Conjecture are examples of statements for which ${\cal S}_{\geq 5}$ is crucial. In this paper, we study parameters which have the potential to further refine ${\cal S}_{\geq 5}$ and thus enlarge the set of cubic graphs for which the mentioned conjectures can be verified. We show that ${\cal S}_{\geq 5}$ can be naturally decomposed into subsets with increasing complexity, thereby producing a natural scale for proving these conjectures. More precisely, we consider the following parameters and questions: given a bridgeless cubic graph, (i) how many perfect matchings need to be added, (ii) how many copies of the same perfect matching need to be added, and (iii) how many 2--factors need to be added so that the resulting regular graph is Class I? We present new results for these parameters and we also establish some strong relations between these problems and some long-standing conjectures.Comment: 27 pages, 16 figure

Interval Edge-Colorings of Graphs

A proper edge-coloring of a graph G by positive integers is called an interval edge-coloring if the colors assigned to the edges incident to any vertex in G are consecutive (i.e., those colors form an interval of integers). The notion of interval edge-colorings was first introduced by Asratian and Kamalian in 1987, motivated by the problem of finding compact school timetables. In 1992, Hansen described another scenario using interval edge-colorings to schedule parent-teacher conferences so that every person\u27s conferences occur in consecutive slots. A solution exists if and only if the bipartite graph with vertices for parents and teachers, and edges for the required meetings, has an interval edge-coloring. A well-known result of Vizing states that for any simple graph G, χ0(G) ≤ ∆(G)+1, where χ0(G) and ∆(G) denote the edge-chromatic number and maximum degree of G, respectively. A graph G is called class 1 if χ0(G) = ∆(G), and class 2 if χ0(G) = ∆(G) + 1. One can see that any graph admitting an interval edge-coloring must be of class 1, and thus every graph of class 2 does not have such a coloring. Finding an interval edge-coloring of a given graph is hard. In fact, it has been shown that determining whether a bipartite graph has an interval edge-coloring is NP-complete. In this thesis, we survey known results on interval edge-colorings of graphs, with a focus on the progress of (a, b)-biregular bipartite graphs. Discussion of related topics and future work is included at the end. We also give a new proof of Theorem 3.15 on the existence of proper path factors of (3, 4)-biregular graphs. Finally, we obtain a new result, Theorem 3.18, which states that if a proper path factor of any (3, 4)-biregular graph has no path of length 8, then it contains paths of length 6 only. The new result we obtained and the method we developed in the proof of Theorem 3.15 might be helpful in attacking the open problems mentioned in the Future Work section of Chapter 5