1,279 research outputs found
Distance-two coloring of sparse graphs
Consider a graph and, for each vertex , a subset
of neighbors of . A -coloring is a coloring of the
elements of so that vertices appearing together in some receive
pairwise distinct colors. An obvious lower bound for the minimum number of
colors in such a coloring is the maximum size of a set , denoted by
. In this paper we study graph classes for which there is a
function , such that for any graph and any , there is a
-coloring using at most colors. It is proved that if
such a function exists for a class , then can be taken to be a linear
function. It is also shown that such classes are precisely the classes having
bounded star chromatic number. We also investigate the list version and the
clique version of this problem, and relate the existence of functions bounding
those parameters to the recently introduced concepts of classes of bounded
expansion and nowhere-dense classes.Comment: 13 pages - revised versio
Chromatic roots are dense in the whole complex plane
I show that the zeros of the chromatic polynomials P_G(q) for the generalized
theta graphs \Theta^{(s,p)} are, taken together, dense in the whole complex
plane with the possible exception of the disc |q-1| < 1. The same holds for
their dichromatic polynomials (alias Tutte polynomials, alias Potts-model
partition functions) Z_G(q,v) outside the disc |q+v| < |v|. An immediate
corollary is that the chromatic zeros of not-necessarily-planar graphs are
dense in the whole complex plane. The main technical tool in the proof of these
results is the Beraha-Kahane-Weiss theorem on the limit sets of zeros for
certain sequences of analytic functions, for which I give a new and simpler
proof.Comment: LaTeX2e, 53 pages. Version 2 includes a new Appendix B. Version 3
adds a new Theorem 1.4 and a new Section 5, and makes several small
improvements. To appear in Combinatorics, Probability & Computin
Generalisation : graphs and colourings
The interaction between practice and theory in mathematics is a central theme. Many mathematical structures and theories result from the formalisation of a real problem. Graph Theory is rich with such examples. The graph structure itself was formalised by Leonard Euler in the quest to solve the problem of the Bridges of Königsberg. Once a structure is formalised, and results are proven, the mathematician seeks to generalise. This can be considered as one of the main praxis in mathematics. The idea of generalisation will be illustrated through graph colouring. This idea also results from a classic problem, in which it was well known by topographers that four colours suffice to colour any map such that no countries sharing a border receive the same colour. The proof of this theorem eluded mathematicians for centuries and was proven in 1976. Generalisation of graphs to hypergraphs, and variations on the colouring theme will be discussed, as well as applications in other disciplines.peer-reviewe
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