The chromatic number of oriented graphs

We introduce in this paper the notion of the chromatic number of an oriented graph G (that is of an antisymmetric directed graph) defined as the minimum order of an oriented graph H such that G admits a homomorphism to H. We study the chromatic number of oriented k-trees and of oriented graphs with bounded degree. We show that there exist oriented k-trees with chromatic number at least 2^k+1 - 1 and that every oriented k-tree has chromatic number at most (k + 1) × 2^k. For 2-trees and 3-trees we decrease these upper bounds respectively to 7 and 16 and show that these new bounds are tight. As a particular case, we obtain that oriented outerplanar graphs have chromatic number at most 7 and that this bound is tight too. We then show that every oriented graph with maximum degree k has chromatic number at most (2k - 1) × 2^2k-2. For oriented graphs with maximum degree 2 we decrease this bound to 5 and show that this new bound is tight. For oriented graphs with maximum degree 3 we decrease this bound to 16 and conjecture that there exists no such connected graph with chromatic number greater than 7. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Graph Theory 25: 191–205, 1997     

Backbone colorings of graphs with bounded degree

We study backbone colorings, a variation on classical vertex colorings: Given a graph G and a subgraph H of G (the backbone of G), a backbone coloring for G and H is a proper vertex k-coloring of G in which the colors assigned to adjacent vertices in H differ by at least 2. The minimal k∈N for which such a coloring exists is called the backbone chromatic number of G. We show that for a graph G of maximum degree Δ where the backbone graph is a d-degenerated subgraph of G, the backbone chromatic number is at most Δ+d+1 and moreover, in the case when the backbone graph being a matching we prove that the backbone chromatic number is at most Δ+1. We also present examples where these bounds are attained.Finally, the asymptotic behavior of the backbone chromatic number is studied regarding the degrees of G and H. We prove for any sparse graph G that if the maximum degree of a backbone graph is small compared to the maximum degree of G, then the backbone chromatic number is at most .     

An oriented coloring of planar graphs with girth at least five

An oriented k-coloring of an oriented graph G is a homomorphism from G to an oriented graph H of order k. We prove that every oriented graph with a maximum average degree less than and girth at least 5 has an oriented chromatic number at most 16. This implies that every oriented planar graph with girth at least 5 has an oriented chromatic number at most 16, that improves the previous known bound of 19 due to Borodin et al. [O.V. Borodin, A.V. Kostochka, J. Nešet?il, A. Raspaud, É. Sopena, On the maximum average degree and the oriented chromatic number of a graph, Discrete Math. 206 (1999) 77-89].     

The generalized acyclic edge chromatic number of random regular graphs

The r‐acyclic edge chromatic number of a graph is defined to be the minimum number of colors required to produce an edge coloring of the graph such that adjacent edges receive different colors and every cycle C has at least min(|C|, r) colors. We show that (r ? 2)d is asymptotically almost surely (a.a.s.) an upper bound on the r‐acyclic edge chromatic number of a random d‐regular graph, for all constants r ≥ 4 and d ≥ 2. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 53: 101–125, 2006     

Note on Choudum's “chromatic bounds for a class of graphs”

If a graph G has no induced subgraph isomorphic to K_1,3′ K₅-e, or a third graph that can be selected from two specific graphs, then the chromatic number of G is either d or d + 1, where d is the maximum order of a clique in G.     

On circle graphs with girth at least five

Circle graphs with girth at least five are known to be 2-degenerate [A.A. Ageev, Every circle graph with girth at least 5 is 3-colourable, Discrete Math. 195 (1999) 229-233]. In this paper, we prove that circle graphs with girth at least g≥5 and minimum degree at least two contain a chain of g−4 vertices of degree two, which implies Ageev’s result in the case g=5. We then use this structural property to give an upper bound on the circular chromatic number of circle graphs with girth at least g≥5 as well as a precise estimate of their maximum average degree.     

Acyclic improper colouring of graphs with maximum degree 4

A k-colouring(not necessarily proper) of vertices of a graph is called acyclic, if for every pair of distinct colours i and j the subgraph induced by the edges whose endpoints have colours i and j is acyclic. We consider acyclic k-colourings such that each colour class induces a graph with a given(hereditary) property. In particular, we consider acyclic k-colourings in which each colour class induces a graph with maximum degree at most t, which are referred to as acyclic t-improper k-colourings. The acyclic t-improper chromatic number of a graph G is the smallest k for which there exists an acyclic t-improper k-colouring of G. We focus on acyclic colourings of graphs with maximum degree 4. We prove that 3 is an upper bound for the acyclic 3-improper chromatic number of this class of graphs. We also provide a non-trivial family of graphs with maximum degree4 whose acyclic 3-improper chromatic number is at most 2, namely, the graphs with maximum average degree at most 3. Finally, we prove that any graph G with Δ(G) 4 can be acyclically coloured with 4 colours in such a way that each colour class induces an acyclic graph with maximum degree at most 3.     

On the oriented chromatic number of graphs with given excess

The excess of a graph G is defined as the minimum number of edges that must be deleted from G in order to get a forest. We prove that every graph with excess at most k has chromatic number at most and that this bound is tight. Moreover, we prove that the oriented chromatic number of any graph with excess k is at most k+3, except for graphs having excess 1 and containing a directed cycle on 5 vertices which have oriented chromatic number 5. This bound is tight for k?4.     

Local chromatic number of quadrangulations of surfaces

The local chromatic number of a graph G, as introduced in [4], is the minimum integer k such that G admits a proper coloring (with an arbitrary number of colors) in which the neighborhood of each vertex uses less than k colors. In [17] a connection of the local chromatic number to topological properties of (a box complex of) the graph was established and in [18] it was shown that a topological condition implying the usual chromatic number being at least four has the stronger consequence that the local chromatic number is also at least four. As a consequence one obtains a generalization of the following theorem of Youngs [19]: If a quadrangulation of the projective plane is not bipartite it has chromatic number four. The generalization states that in this case the local chromatic number is also four. Both papers [1] and [13] generalize Youngs’ result to arbitrary non-orientable surfaces replacing the condition of the graph being not bipartite by a more technical condition of an odd quadrangulation. This paper investigates when these general results are true for the local chromatic number instead of the chromatic number. Surprisingly, we find out that (unlike in the case of the chromatic number) this depends on the genus of the surface. For the non-orientable surfaces of genus at most four, the local chromatic number of any odd quadrangulation is at least four, but this is not true for non-orientable surfaces of genus 5 or higher. We also prove that face subdivisions of odd quadrangulations and Fisk triangulations of arbitrary surfaces exhibit the same behavior for the local chromatic number as they do for the usual chromatic number.     

Generalised acyclic edge colourings of graphs with large girth

The r-acyclic edge chromatic number of a graph G is the minimum number of colours required to colour the edges of G in such a way that adjacent edges receive different colours and every cycle C receives at least min{|C|,r} colours. We prove that for any integer r?4, the r-acyclic edge chromatic number of any graph G with maximum degree Δ and with girth at least 3(r-1)Δ is at most 6(r-1)Δ.     

On coloring graphs with locally small chromatic number

In 1973, P. Erdös conjectured that for eachkε2, there exists a constantc _k so that ifG is a graph onn vertices andG has no odd cycle with length less thanc _k n ^1/k , then the chromatic number ofG is at mostk+1. Constructions due to Lovász and Schriver show thatc _k , if it exists, must be at least 1. In this paper we settle Erdös’ conjecture in the affirmative. We actually prove a stronger result which provides an upper bound on the chromatic number of a graph in which we have a bound on the chromatic number of subgraphs with small diameter.     

The structure of plane graphs with independent crossings and its applications to coloring problems

If a graph G has a drawing in the plane in such a way that every two crossings are independent, then we call G a plane graph with independent crossings or IC-planar graph for short. In this paper, the structure of IC-planar graphs with minimum degree at least two or three is studied. By applying their structural results, we prove that the edge chromatic number of G is Δ if Δ ≥ 8, the list edge (resp. list total) chromatic number of G is Δ (resp. Δ + 1) if Δ ≥ 14 and the linear arboricity of G is ?Δ/2? if Δ ≥ 17, where G is an IC-planar graph and Δ is the maximum degree of G.     

Incidence coloring of the squares of some graphs

The incidence chromatic number of G, denoted by χ_i(G), is the least number of colors such that G has an incidence coloring. In this paper, we determine the incidence chromatic number of the powers of paths, trees, which are min{n,2k+1}, and Δ(T²)+1, respectively. For the square of a Halin graph, we give an upper bound of its incidence chromatic number.     

Circumference, chromatic number and online coloring

Erd?s conjectured that if G is a triangle free graph of chromatic number at least k≥3, then it contains an odd cycle of length at least k ^2?o(1) [13,15]. Nothing better than a linear bound ([3], Problem 5.1.55 in [16]) was so far known. We make progress on this conjecture by showing that G contains an odd cycle of length at least Ω(k log logk). Erd?s’ conjecture is known to hold for graphs with girth at least five. We show that if a graph with girth four is C ₅ free, then Erd?s’ conjecture holds. When the number of vertices is not too large we can prove better bounds on χ. We also give bounds on the chromatic number of graphs with at most r cycles of length 1 mod k, or at most s cycles of length 2 mod k, or no cycles of length 3 mod k. Our techniques essentially consist of using a depth first search tree to decompose the graph into ordered paths, which are then fed to an online coloring algorithm. Using this technique we give simple proofs of some old results, and also obtain several other results. We also obtain a lower bound on the number of colors which an online coloring algorithm needs to use to color triangle free graphs.     

Extremal problems for chromatic neighborhood sets

The chromatic neighborhood sequence of a graph G is the list of the chromatic numbers of the subgraphs induced by the neighborhoods of the vertices. We study the maximum multiplicity of this sequence, proving, amongst other things, that if a chromatic neighborhood sequence has t distinct values, the largest value being d_t, then there is a value with multiplicity at least . This bound is asymptotically tight. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 40: 68–74, 2002     

The acyclic edge chromatic number of a random d‐regular graph is d + 1

We prove the theorem from the title: the acyclic edge chromatic number of a random d‐regular graph is asymptotically almost surely equal to d + 1. This improves a result of Alon, Sudakov, and Zaks and presents further support for a conjecture that Δ(G) + 2 is the bound for the acyclic edge chromatic number of any graph G. It also represents an analog of a result of Robinson and the second author on edge chromatic number. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 49: 69–74, 2005     

The incidence game chromatic number

We introduce the incidence game chromatic number which unifies the ideas of game chromatic number and incidence coloring number of an undirected graph. For k-degenerate graphs with maximum degree Δ, the upper bound 2Δ+4k−2 for the incidence game chromatic number is given. If Δ≥5k, we improve this bound to the value 2Δ+3k−1. We also determine the exact incidence game chromatic number of cycles, stars and sufficiently large wheels and obtain the lower bound for the incidence game chromatic number of graphs of maximum degree Δ.     

Coloring the cliques of line graphs

The weak chromatic number, or clique chromatic number (CCHN) of a graph is the minimum number of colors in a vertex coloring, such that every maximal clique gets at least two colors. The weak chromatic index, or clique chromatic index (CCHI) of a graph is the CCHN of its line graph.Most of the results here are upper bounds for the CCHI, as functions of some other graph parameters, and contrasting with lower bounds in some cases. Algorithmic aspects are also discussed; the main result within this scope (and in the paper) shows that testing whether the CCHI of a graph equals $2$ is NP-complete. We deal with the CCHN of the graph itself as well.     

The neighborhood complex of a random graph

For a graph G, the neighborhood complex N[G] is the simplicial complex having all subsets of vertices with a common neighbor as its faces. It is a well-known result of Lovász that if ‖N[G]‖ is k-connected, then the chromatic number of G is at least k+3.We prove that the connectivity of the neighborhood complex of a random graph is tightly concentrated, almost always between 1/2 and 2/3 of the expected clique number. We also show that the number of dimensions of nontrivial homology is almost always small, O(logd), compared to the expected dimension d of the complex itself.     

Game chromatic index of k‐degenerate graphs

We consider the following edge coloring game on a graph G. Given t distinct colors, two players Alice and Bob, with Alice moving first, alternately select an uncolored edge e of G and assign it a color different from the colors of edges adjacent to e. Bob wins if, at any stage of the game, there is an uncolored edge adjacent to colored edges in all t colors; otherwise Alice wins. Note that when Alice wins, all edges of G are properly colored. The game chromatic index of a graph G is the minimum number of colors for which Alice has a winning strategy. In this paper, we study the edge coloring game on k‐degenerate graphs. We prove that the game chromatic index of a k‐degenerate graph is at most Δ + 3k − 1, where Δ is the maximum vertex degree of the graph. We also show that the game chromatic index of a forest of maximum degree 3 is at most 4 when the forest contains an odd number of edges. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Graph Theory 36: 144–155, 2001