On star edge colorings of bipartite and subcubic graphs

A star edge coloring of a graph is a proper edge coloring with no $2$-colored path or cycle of length four. The star chromatic index $\chi'_{st}(G)$ of $G$ is the minimum number $t$ for which $G$ has a star edge coloring with $t$ colors. We prove upper bounds for the star chromatic index of complete bipartite graphs; in particular we obtain tight upper bounds for the case when one part has size at most $3$. We also consider bipartite graphs $G$ where all vertices in one part have maximum degree $2$ and all vertices in the other part has maximum degree $b$. Let $k$ be an integer ($k\geq 1$), we prove that if $b=2k+1$ then $\chi'_{st}(G) \leq 3k+2$; and if $b=2k$, then $\chi'_{st}(G) \leq 3k$; both upper bounds are sharp. Finally, we consider the well-known conjecture that subcubic graphs have star chromatic index at most $6$; in particular we settle this conjecture for cubic Halin graphs.Comment: 18 page

Extending partial edge colorings of iterated cartesian products of cycles and paths

We consider the problem of extending partial edge colorings of iterated cartesian products of even cycles and paths, focusing on the case when the precolored edges satisfy either an Evans-type condition or is a matching. In particular, we prove that if $G=C^d_{2k}$ is the $d$th power of the cartesian product of the even cycle $C_{2k}$ with itself, and at most $2d-1$ edges of $G$ are precolored, then there is a proper $2d$-edge coloring of $G$ that agrees with the partial coloring. We show that the same conclusion holds, without restrictions on the number of precolored edges, if any two precolored edges are at distance at least $4$ from each other. For odd cycles of length at least $5$, we prove that if $G=C^d_{2k+1}$ is the $d$th power of the cartesian product of the odd cycle $C_{2k+1}$ with itself ($k\geq2$), and at most $2d$ edges of $G$ are precolored, then there is a proper $(2d+1)$-edge coloring of $G$ that agrees with the partial coloring. Our results generalize previous ones on precoloring extension of hypercubes [Journal of Graph Theory 95 (2020) 410--444]