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