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

Backbone colorings for networks: tree and path backbones

We introduce and study backbone colorings, a variation on classical vertex colorings: Given a graph $G=(V,E)$ and a spanning subgraph $H$ of $G$ (the backbone of $G$), a backbone coloring for $G$ and $H$ is a proper vertex coloring $V\rightarrow \{1,2,\ldots\}$ of $G$ in which the colors assigned to adjacent vertices in $H$ differ by at least two. We study the cases where the backbone is either a spanning tree or a spanning path

Distinguishing locally finite trees

The distinguishing number $D(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the smallest number of colors that is needed to color the vertices of $G$ such that the only color preserving automorphism is the identity. For infinite graphs $D(G)$ is bounded by the supremum of the valences, and for finite graphs by $\Delta(G)+1$, where $\Delta(G)$ is the maximum valence. Given a finite or infinite tree $T$ of bounded finite valence $k$ and an integer $c$, where $2 \leq c \leq k$, we are interested in coloring the vertices of $T$ by $c$ colors, such that every color preserving automorphism fixes as many vertices as possible. In this sense we show that there always exists a $c$-coloring for which all vertices whose distance from the next leaf is at least $\lceil\log_ck\rceil$ are fixed by any color preserving automorphism, and that one can do much better in many cases

On weight distributions of perfect colorings and completely regular codes

A vertex coloring of a graph is called "perfect" if for any two colors $a$ and $b$, the number of the color-$b$ neighbors of a color-$a$ vertex $x$ does not depend on the choice of $x$, that is, depends only on $a$ and $b$ (the corresponding partition of the vertex set is known as "equitable"). A set of vertices is called "completely regular" if the coloring according to the distance from this set is perfect. By the "weight distribution" of some coloring with respect to some set we mean the information about the number of vertices of every color at every distance from the set. We study the weight distribution of a perfect coloring (equitable partition) of a graph with respect to a completely regular set (in particular, with respect to a vertex if the graph is distance-regular). We show how to compute this distribution by the knowledge of the color composition over the set. For some partial cases of completely regular sets, we derive explicit formulas of weight distributions. Since any (other) completely regular set itself generates a perfect coloring, this gives universal formulas for calculating the weight distribution of any completely regular set from its parameters. In the case of Hamming graphs, we prove a very simple formula for the weight enumerator of an arbitrary perfect coloring. Codewords: completely regular code; equitable partition; partition design; perfect coloring; perfect structure; regular partition; weight distribution; weight enumerator.Comment: 17pp; partially presented at "Optimal Codes and Related Topics" OC2009, Varna (Bulgaria). V.2: the title was changed (old: "On weight distributions of perfect structures"), Sect.5 "Weight enumerators ..." was adde

Totally Silver Graphs

A totally silver coloring of a graph G is a k--coloring of G such that for every vertex v \in V(G), each color appears exactly once on N[v], the closed neighborhood of v. A totally silver graph is a graph which admits a totally silver coloring. Totally silver coloring are directly related to other areas of graph theory such as distance coloring and domination. In this work, we present several constructive characterizations of totally silver graphs and bipartite totally silver graphs. We give several infinite families of totally silver graphs. We also give cubic totally silver graphs of girth up to 10

The chromatic number of the plane is at least 5 - a new proof

We present an alternate proof of the fact that given any 4-coloring of the plane there exist two points unit distance apart which are identically colored.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

Conflict-Free Coloring of Planar Graphs

A conflict-free k-coloring of a graph assigns one of k different colors to some of the vertices such that, for every vertex v, there is a color that is assigned to exactly one vertex among v and v's neighbors. Such colorings have applications in wireless networking, robotics, and geometry, and are well-studied in graph theory. Here we study the natural problem of the conflict-free chromatic number chi_CF(G) (the smallest k for which conflict-free k-colorings exist). We provide results both for closed neighborhoods N[v], for which a vertex v is a member of its neighborhood, and for open neighborhoods N(v), for which vertex v is not a member of its neighborhood. For closed neighborhoods, we prove the conflict-free variant of the famous Hadwiger Conjecture: If an arbitrary graph G does not contain K_{k+1} as a minor, then chi_CF(G) <= k. For planar graphs, we obtain a tight worst-case bound: three colors are sometimes necessary and always sufficient. We also give a complete characterization of the computational complexity of conflict-free coloring. Deciding whether chi_CF(G)<= 1 is NP-complete for planar graphs G, but polynomial for outerplanar graphs. Furthermore, deciding whether chi_CF(G)<= 2 is NP-complete for planar graphs G, but always true for outerplanar graphs. For the bicriteria problem of minimizing the number of colored vertices subject to a given bound k on the number of colors, we give a full algorithmic characterization in terms of complexity and approximation for outerplanar and planar graphs. For open neighborhoods, we show that every planar bipartite graph has a conflict-free coloring with at most four colors; on the other hand, we prove that for k in {1,2,3}, it is NP-complete to decide whether a planar bipartite graph has a conflict-free k-coloring. Moreover, we establish that any general} planar graph has a conflict-free coloring with at most eight colors.Comment: 30 pages, 17 figures; full version (to appear in SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics) of extended abstract that appears in Proceeedings of the Twenty-Eighth Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA 2017), pp. 1951-196

List-coloring embedded graphs

For any fixed surface Sigma of genus g, we give an algorithm to decide whether a graph G of girth at least five embedded in Sigma is colorable from an assignment of lists of size three in time O(|V(G)|). Furthermore, we can allow a subgraph (of any size) with at most s components to be precolored, at the expense of increasing the time complexity of the algorithm to O(|V(G)|^{K(g+s)+1}) for some absolute constant K; in both cases, the multiplicative constant hidden in the O-notation depends on g and s. This also enables us to find such a coloring when it exists. The idea of the algorithm can be applied to other similar problems, e.g., 5-list-coloring of graphs on surfaces.Comment: 14 pages, 0 figures, accepted to SODA'1

Star chromatic index

The star chromatic index $\chi_s'(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the minimum number of colors needed to properly color the edges of the graph so that no path or cycle of length four is bi-colored. We obtain a near-linear upper bound in terms of the maximum degree $\Delta=\Delta(G)$. Our best lower bound on $\chi_s'$ in terms of $\Delta$ is $2\Delta(1+o(1))$ valid for complete graphs. We also consider the special case of cubic graphs, for which we show that the star chromatic index lies between 4 and 7 and characterize the graphs attaining the lower bound. The proofs involve a variety of notions from other branches of mathematics and may therefore be of certain independent interest.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure

The complexity of nonrepetitive edge coloring of graphs

A squarefree word is a sequence $w$ of symbols such that there are no strings $x, y$, and $z$ for which $w=xyyz$. A nonrepetitive coloring of a graph is an edge coloring in which the sequence of colors along any open path is squarefree. We show that determining whether a graph $G$ has a nonrepetitive $k$-coloring is $\Sigma_2^p$-complete. When we restrict to paths of lengths at most $n$, the problem becomes NP-complete for fixed $n$