Recoloring graphs via tree decompositions

Let $k$ be an integer. Two vertex $k$-colorings of a graph are \emph{adjacent} if they differ on exactly one vertex. A graph is \emph{$k$-mixing} if any proper $k$-coloring can be transformed into any other through a sequence of adjacent proper $k$-colorings. Jerrum proved that any graph is $k$-mixing if $k$ is at least the maximum degree plus two. We first improve Jerrum's bound using the grundy number, which is the worst number of colors in a greedy coloring. Any graph is $(tw+2)$-mixing, where $tw$ is the treewidth of the graph (Cereceda 2006). We prove that the shortest sequence between any two $(tw+2)$-colorings is at most quadratic (which is optimal up to a constant factor), a problem left open in Bonamy et al. (2012). We also prove that given any two $(\chi(G)+1)$-colorings of a cograph (resp. distance-hereditary graph) $G$, we can find a linear (resp. quadratic) sequence between them. In both cases, the bounds cannot be improved by more than a constant factor for a fixed $\chi(G)$. The graph classes are also optimal in some sense: one of the smallest interesting superclass of distance-hereditary graphs corresponds to comparability graphs, for which no such property holds (even when relaxing the constraint on the length of the sequence). As for cographs, they are equivalently the graphs with no induced $P_4$, and there exist $P_5$-free graphs that admit no sequence between two of their $(\chi(G)+1)$-colorings. All the proofs are constructivist and lead to polynomial-time recoloring algorithmComment: 20 pages, 8 figures, partial results already presented in http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.348

Recoloring bounded treewidth graphs

Let $k$ be an integer. Two vertex $k$-colorings of a graph are \emph{adjacent} if they differ on exactly one vertex. A graph is \emph{$k$-mixing} if any proper $k$-coloring can be transformed into any other through a sequence of adjacent proper $k$-colorings. Any graph is $(tw+2)$-mixing, where $tw$ is the treewidth of the graph (Cereceda 2006). We prove that the shortest sequence between any two $(tw+2)$-colorings is at most quadratic, a problem left open in Bonamy et al. (2012). Jerrum proved that any graph is $k$-mixing if $k$ is at least the maximum degree plus two. We improve Jerrum's bound using the grundy number, which is the worst number of colors in a greedy coloring.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

On the neighbour sum distinguishing index of planar graphs

Let $c$ be a proper edge colouring of a graph $G=(V,E)$ with integers $1,2,\ldots,k$. Then $k\geq \Delta(G)$, while by Vizing's theorem, no more than $k=\Delta(G)+1$ is necessary for constructing such $c$. On the course of investigating irregularities in graphs, it has been moreover conjectured that only slightly larger $k$, i.e., $k=\Delta(G)+2$ enables enforcing additional strong feature of $c$, namely that it attributes distinct sums of incident colours to adjacent vertices in $G$ if only this graph has no isolated edges and is not isomorphic to $C_5$. We prove the conjecture is valid for planar graphs of sufficiently large maximum degree. In fact even stronger statement holds, as the necessary number of colours stemming from the result of Vizing is proved to be sufficient for this family of graphs. Specifically, our main result states that every planar graph $G$ of maximum degree at least $28$ which contains no isolated edges admits a proper edge colouring $c:E\to\{1,2,\ldots,\Delta(G)+1\}$ such that $\sum_{e\ni u}c(e)\neq \sum_{e\ni v}c(e)$ for every edge $uv$ of $G$.Comment: 22 page

The interactive sum choice number of graphs

We introduce a variant of the well-studied sum choice number of graphs, which we call the interactive sum choice number. In this variant, we request colours to be added to the vertices' colour-lists one at a time, and so we are able to make use of information about the colours assigned so far to determine our future choices. The interactive sum choice number cannot exceed the sum choice number and we conjecture that, except in the case of complete graphs, the interactive sum choice number is always strictly smaller than the sum choice number. In this paper we provide evidence in support of this conjecture, demonstrating that it holds for a number of graph classes, and indeed that in many cases the difference between the two quantities grows as a linear function of the number of vertices

Brooks' theorem on powers of graphs

We prove that for $k\geq 3$, the bound given by Brooks' theorem on the chromatic number of $k$-th powers of graphs of maximum degree $\Delta \geq 3$ can be lowered by 1, even in the case of online list coloring.Comment: 7 pages, no figure, submitte