Rainbow Connection Number and Radius

The rainbow connection number, rc(G), of a connected graph G is the minimum number of colours needed to colour its edges, so that every pair of its vertices is connected by at least one path in which no two edges are coloured the same. In this note we show that for every bridgeless graph G with radius r, rc(G) <= r(r + 2). We demonstrate that this bound is the best possible for rc(G) as a function of r, not just for bridgeless graphs, but also for graphs of any stronger connectivity. It may be noted that for a general 1-connected graph G, rc(G) can be arbitrarily larger than its radius (Star graph for instance). We further show that for every bridgeless graph G with radius r and chordality (size of a largest induced cycle) k, rc(G) <= rk. It is known that computing rc(G) is NP-Hard [Chakraborty et al., 2009]. Here, we present a (r+3)-factor approximation algorithm which runs in O(nm) time and a (d+3)-factor approximation algorithm which runs in O(dm) time to rainbow colour any connected graph G on n vertices, with m edges, diameter d and radius r.Comment: Revised preprint with an extra section on an approximation algorithm. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1101.574

A Survey on Monochromatic Connections of Graphs

The concept of monochromatic connection of graphs was introduced by Caro and Yuster in 2011. Recently, a lot of results have been published about it. In this survey, we attempt to bring together all the results that dealt with it. We begin with an introduction, and then classify the results into the following categories: monochromatic connection coloring of edge-version, monochromatic connection coloring of vertex-version, monochromatic index, monochromatic connection coloring of total-version.Comment: 26 pages, 3 figure

Note on the upper bound of the rainbow index of a graph

A path in an edge-colored graph $G$, where adjacent edges may be colored the same, is a rainbow path if every two edges of it receive distinct colors. The rainbow connection number of a connected graph $G$, denoted by $rc(G)$, is the minimum number of colors that are needed to color the edges of $G$ such that there exists a rainbow path connecting every two vertices of $G$. Similarly, a tree in $G$ is a rainbow~tree if no two edges of it receive the same color. The minimum number of colors that are needed in an edge-coloring of $G$ such that there is a rainbow tree connecting $S$ for each $k$-subset $S$ of $V(G)$ is called the $k$-rainbow index of $G$, denoted by $rx_k(G)$, where $k$ is an integer such that $2\leq k\leq n$. Chakraborty et al. got the following result: For every $\epsilon> 0$, a connected graph with minimum degree at least $\epsilon n$ has bounded rainbow connection, where the bound depends only on $\epsilon$. Krivelevich and Yuster proved that if $G$ has $n$ vertices and the minimum degree $\delta(G)$ then $rc(G)<20n/\delta(G)$. This bound was later improved to $3n/(\delta(G)+1)+3$ by Chandran et al. Since $rc(G)=rx_2(G)$, a natural problem arises: for a general $k$ determining the true behavior of $rx_k(G)$ as a function of the minimum degree $\delta(G)$. In this paper, we give upper bounds of $rx_k(G)$ in terms of the minimum degree $\delta(G)$ in different ways, namely, via Szemer\'{e}di's Regularity Lemma, connected $2$-step dominating sets, connected $(k-1)$-dominating sets and $k$-dominating sets of $G$.Comment: 12 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:0902.1255 by other author

On Rainbow Connection Number and Connectivity

Rainbow connection number, $rc(G)$, of a connected graph $G$ is the minimum number of colours needed to colour its edges, so that every pair of vertices is connected by at least one path in which no two edges are coloured the same. In this paper we investigate the relationship of rainbow connection number with vertex and edge connectivity. It is already known that for a connected graph with minimum degree $\delta$, the rainbow connection number is upper bounded by $3n/(\delta + 1) + 3$ [Chandran et al., 2010]. This directly gives an upper bound of $3n/(\lambda + 1) + 3$ and $3n/(\kappa + 1) + 3$ for rainbow connection number where $\lambda$ and $\kappa$, respectively, denote the edge and vertex connectivity of the graph. We show that the above bound in terms of edge connectivity is tight up-to additive constants and show that the bound in terms of vertex connectivity can be improved to $(2 + \epsilon)n/\kappa + 23/ \epsilon^2$, for any $\epsilon > 0$. We conjecture that rainbow connection number is upper bounded by $n/\kappa + O(1)$ and show that it is true for $\kappa = 2$. We also show that the conjecture is true for chordal graphs and graphs of girth at least 7.Comment: 10 page

Covering graphs by monochromatic trees and Helly-type results for hypergraphs

How many monochromatic paths, cycles or general trees does one need to cover all vertices of a given $r$-edge-coloured graph $G$? These problems were introduced in the 1960s and were intensively studied by various researchers over the last 50 years. In this paper, we establish a connection between this problem and the following natural Helly-type question in hypergraphs. Roughly speaking, this question asks for the maximum number of vertices needed to cover all the edges of a hypergraph $H$ if it is known that any collection of a few edges of $H$ has a small cover. We obtain quite accurate bounds for the hypergraph problem and use them to give some unexpected answers to several questions about covering graphs by monochromatic trees raised and studied by Bal and DeBiasio, Kohayakawa, Mota and Schacht, Lang and Lo, and Gir\~ao, Letzter and Sahasrabudhe.Comment: 20 pages including references plus 2 pages of an Appendi