5,946 research outputs found
Generalized Kneser coloring theorems with combinatorial proofs
The Kneser conjecture (1955) was proved by Lov\'asz (1978) using the
Borsuk-Ulam theorem; all subsequent proofs, extensions and generalizations also
relied on Algebraic Topology results, namely the Borsuk-Ulam theorem and its
extensions. Only in 2000, Matou\v{s}ek provided the first combinatorial proof
of the Kneser conjecture.
Here we provide a hypergraph coloring theorem, with a combinatorial proof,
which has as special cases the Kneser conjecture as well as its extensions and
generalization by (hyper)graph coloring theorems of Dol'nikov,
Alon-Frankl-Lov\'asz, Sarkaria, and Kriz. We also give a combinatorial proof of
Schrijver's theorem.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figure
Topological lower bounds for the chromatic number: A hierarchy
This paper is a study of ``topological'' lower bounds for the chromatic
number of a graph. Such a lower bound was first introduced by Lov\'asz in 1978,
in his famous proof of the \emph{Kneser conjecture} via Algebraic Topology.
This conjecture stated that the \emph{Kneser graph} \KG_{m,n}, the graph with
all -element subsets of as vertices and all pairs of
disjoint sets as edges, has chromatic number . Several other proofs
have since been published (by B\'ar\'any, Schrijver, Dolnikov, Sarkaria, Kriz,
Greene, and others), all of them based on some version of the Borsuk--Ulam
theorem, but otherwise quite different. Each can be extended to yield some
lower bound on the chromatic number of an arbitrary graph. (Indeed, we observe
that \emph{every} finite graph may be represented as a generalized Kneser
graph, to which the above bounds apply.)
We show that these bounds are almost linearly ordered by strength, the
strongest one being essentially Lov\'asz' original bound in terms of a
neighborhood complex. We also present and compare various definitions of a
\emph{box complex} of a graph (developing ideas of Alon, Frankl, and Lov\'asz
and of \kriz). A suitable box complex is equivalent to Lov\'asz' complex, but
the construction is simpler and functorial, mapping graphs with homomorphisms
to -spaces with -maps.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure. Jahresbericht der DMV, to appea
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