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