Graph Theory

[no abstract available

Digraph Coloring Games and Game-Perfectness

In this thesis the game chromatic number of a digraph is introduced as a game-theoretic variant of the dichromatic number. This notion generalizes the well-known game chromatic number of a graph. An extended model also takes into account relaxed colorings and asymmetric move sequences. Game-perfectness is defined as a game-theoretic variant of perfectness of a graph, and is generalized to digraphs. We examine upper and lower bounds for the game chromatic number of several classes of digraphs. In the last part of the thesis, we characterize game-perfect digraphs with small clique number, and prove general results concerning game-perfectness. Some results are verified with the help of a computer program that is discussed in the appendix

List Coloring Some Classes of 1-Planar Graphs

In list coloring we are given a graph G and a list assignment for G which assigns to each vertex of G a list of possible colors. We wish to find a coloring of the vertices of G such that each vertex uses a color from its list and adjacent vertices are given different colors. In this thesis we study the problem of list coloring 1-planar graphs, i.e., graphs that can be drawn in the plane such that any edge intersects at most one other edge. We also study the closely related problem of simultaneously list coloring the vertices and faces of a planar graph, known as coupled list coloring. We show that 1-planar bipartite graphs are list colorable whenever all lists are of size at least four, and further show that this coloring can be found in linear time. In pursuit of this result, we show that the previously known edge partition of a 1-planar graph into a planar graph and a forest can be found in linear time. A wheel graph consists of a cycle of vertices, all of which are adjacent to an additional center vertex. We show that wheel graphs are coupled list colorable when all lists are of size five or more and show that this coloring can be found in linear time. Possible extensions of this result to planar partial 3-trees are discussed. Finally, we discuss the complexity of list coloring 1-planar graphs, both in parameterized and unparameterized settings

The linear arboricity conjecture for graphs of low degeneracy

A $k$-linear coloring of a graph $G$ is an edge coloring of $G$ with $k$ colors so that each color class forms a linear forest -- a forest whose each connected component is a path. The linear arboricity $\chi_l'(G)$ of $G$ is the minimum integer $k$ such that there exists a $k$-linear coloring of $G$. Akiyama, Exoo and Harary conjectured in 1980 that for every graph $G$, $\chi_l'(G)\leq \left \lceil \frac{\Delta(G)+1}{2}\right\rceil$ where $\Delta(G)$ is the maximum degree of $G$. First, we prove the conjecture for 3-degenerate graphs. This establishes the conjecture for graphs of treewidth at most 3 and provides an alternative proof for the conjecture in some classes of graphs like cubic graphs and triangle-free planar graphs for which the conjecture was already known to be true. Next, for every 2-degenerate graph $G$, we show that $\chi'_l(G)=\left\lceil\frac{\Delta(G)}{2}\right\rceil$ if $\Delta(G)\geq 5$. We conjecture that this equality holds also when $\Delta(G)\in\{3,4\}$ and show that this is the case for some well-known subclasses of 2-degenerate graphs. All our proofs can be converted into linear time algorithms.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figures, preliminary version appeared in the proceedings of WG 202

An extensive English language bibliography on graph theory and its applications

Bibliography on graph theory and its application

Generalizing graph decompositions

The Latin aphorism ‘divide et impera’ conveys a simple, but central idea in mathematics and computer science: ‘split your problem recursively into smaller parts, attack the parts, and conquer the whole’. There is a vast literature on how to do this on graphs. But often we need to compute on other structures (decorated graphs or perhaps algebraic objects such as groups) for which we do not have a wealth of decomposition methods. This thesis attacks this problem head on: we propose new decomposition methods in a variety of settings. In the setting of directed graphs, we introduce a new tree-width analogue called directed branch-width. We show that parameterizing by directed branch-width allows us to obtain linear-time algorithms for problems such as directed Hamilton Path and Max-Cut which are intractable by any other known directed analogue of tree-width. In fact, the algorithmic success of our new measure is more far-reaching: by proving algorithmic meta-theorems parameterized by directed branch-width, we deduce linear-time algorithms for all problems expressable in a variant of monadic second-order logic. Moving on from directed graphs, we then provide a meta-answer to the broader question of obtaining tree-width analogues for objects other than simple graphs. We do so introducing the theory of spined categories and triangualtion functors which constitutes a vast category-theoretic abstraction of a definition of tree-width due to Halin. Our theory acts as a black box for the definition and discovery of tree-width-like parameters in new settings: given a spined category as input, it yields an appropriate tree-width analogue as output. Finally we study temporal graphs: these are graphs whose edges appear and disappear over time. Many problems on temporal graphs are intractable even when their topology is severely restricted (such as being a tree or even a star); thus, to be able to conquer, we need decompositions that take temporal information into account. We take these considerations to heart and define a purely temporal width measure called interval-membership-width which allows us to employ dynamic programming (i.e. divide and conquer) techniques on temporal graphs whose times are sufficiently well-structured, regardless of the underlying topology

Discrete Geometry

[no abstract available

Graph Colouring with Input Restrictions

In this thesis, we research the computational complexity of the graph colouring problem and its variants including precolouring extension and list colouring for graph classes that can be characterised by forbidding one or more induced subgraphs. We investigate the structural properties of such graph classes and prove a number of new properties. We then consider to what extent these properties can be used for efficiently solving the three types of colouring problems on these graph classes. In some cases we obtain polynomial-time algorithms, whereas other cases turn out to be NP-complete. We determine the computational complexity of k-COLOURING, k-PRECOLOURING EXTENSION and LIST k-COLOURING on $P_k$-free graphs. In particular, we prove that k-COLOURING on $P_8$-free graphs is NP-complete, 4-PRECOLOURING EXTENSION $P_7$-free graphs is NP-complete, and LIST 4-COLOURING on $P_6$-free graphs is NP-complete. In addition, we show the existence of an integer r such that k-COLOURING is NP-complete for $P_r$-free graphs with girth 4. In contrast, we determine for any fixed girth $g\geq 4$ a lower bound $r(g)$ such that every $P_{r(g)}$-free graph with girth at least $g$ is 3-colourable. We also prove that 3-LIST COLOURING is NP-complete for complete graphs minus a matching. We present a polynomial-time algorithm for solving 4-PRECOLOURING EXTENSION on $(P_2+P_3)$-free graphs, a polynomial-time algorithm for solving LIST 3-Colouring on $(P_2+P_4)$-free graphs, and a polynomial-time algorithm for solving LIST 3-COLOURING on $sP_3$-free graphs. We prove that LIST k-COLOURING for $(K_{s,t},P_r)$-free graphs is also polynomial-time solvable. We obtain several new dichotomies by combining the above results with some known results

Tree-like graphings, wallings, and median graphings of equivalence relations

We prove several results showing that every locally finite Borel graph whose large-scale geometry is "tree-like" induces a treeable equivalence relation. In particular, our hypotheses hold if each component of the original graph either has bounded tree-width or is quasi-isometric to a tree. In the latter case, we moreover show that there exists a Borel quasi-isometry to a Borel forest, under the additional assumption of (componentwise) bounded degree. We also extend these results on quasi-treeings to Borel proper metric spaces. In fact, our most general result shows treeability of countable Borel equivalence relations equipped with an abstract wallspace structure on each class obeying some local finiteness conditions, which we call a proper walling. The proof is based on the Stone duality between proper wallings and median graphs, i.e., CAT(0) cube complexes.Comment: 38 page