Acyclic edge colouring of planar graphs without short cycles

Let G=(V,E) be any finite graph. A mapping C:E→[k] is called an acyclic edgek-colouring of G, if any two adjacent edges have different colours and there are no bichromatic cycles in G. In other words, for every pair of distinct colours i and j, the subgraph induced in G by all the edges which have colour i or j, is acyclic. The smallest number k of colours, such that G has an acyclic edge k-colouring is called the acyclic chromatic index of G, denoted by .In 2001, Alon et al. conjectured that for any graph G it holds that ; here Δ(G) stands for the maximum degree of G.In this paper we prove this conjecture for planar graphs with girth at least 5 and for planar graphs not containing cycles of length 4,6,8 and 9. We also show that if G is planar with girth at least 6. Moreover, we find an upper bound for the acyclic chromatic index of planar graphs without cycles of length 4. Namely, we prove that if G is such a graph, then .     

General neighbour-distinguishing index via chromatic number

An edge colouring of a graph G without isolated edges is neighbour-distinguishing if any two adjacent vertices have distinct sets consisting of colours of their incident edges. The general neighbour-distinguishing index of G is the minimum number of colours in a neighbour-distinguishing edge colouring of G. Gy?ri et al. [E. Gy?ri, M. Horňák, C. Palmer, M. Wo?niak, General neighbour-distinguishing index of a graph, Discrete Math. 308 (2008) 827-831] proved that provided G is bipartite and gave a complete characterisation of bipartite graphs according to their general neighbour-distinguishing index. The aim of this paper is to prove that if χ(G)≥3, then . Therefore, if log₂χ(G)∉Z, then .     

Circular game chromatic number of graphs

In a circular r-colouring game on G, Alice and Bob take turns colouring the vertices of G with colours from the circle S(r) of perimeter r. Colours assigned to adjacent vertices need to have distance at least 1 in S(r). Alice wins the game if all vertices are coloured, and Bob wins the game if some uncoloured vertices have no legal colour. The circular game chromatic number χ_cg(G) of G is the infimum of those real numbers r for which Alice has a winning strategy in the circular r-colouring game on G. This paper proves that for any graph G, , where is the game colouring number of G. This upper bound is shown to be sharp for forests. It is also shown that for any graph G, χ_cg(G)≤2χ_a(G)(χ_a(G)+1), where χ_a(G) is the acyclic chromatic number of G. We also determine the exact value of the circular game chromatic number of some special graphs, including complete graphs, paths, and cycles.     

A result on the total colouring of powers of cycles

The total chromatic number χ_T(G) is the least number of colours needed to colour the vertices and edges of a graph G such that no incident or adjacent elements (vertices or edges) receive the same colour. The Total Colouring Conjecture (TCC) states that for every simple graph G, χ_T(G)?Δ(G)+2. This work verifies the TCC for powers of cycles even and 2<k<n/2, showing that there exists and can be polynomially constructed a (Δ(G)+2)-total colouring for these graphs.     

Edge colouring by total labellings

We introduce the concept of an edge-colouring total k-labelling. This is a labelling of the vertices and the edges of a graph G with labels 1,2,…,k such that the weights of the edges define a proper edge colouring of G. Here the weight of an edge is the sum of its label and the labels of its two endvertices. We define to be the smallest integer k for which G has an edge-colouring total k-labelling. This parameter has natural upper and lower bounds in terms of the maximum degree Δ of . We improve the upper bound by 1 for every graph and prove . Moreover, we investigate some special classes of graphs.     

Greedy F-colorings of graphs

Let G=(V,E) be a connected graph. For a symmetric, integer-valued function δ on V×V, where K is an integer constant, N₀ is the set of nonnegative integers, and Z is the set of integers, we define a C-mapping by F(u,v,m)=δ(u,v)+m−K. A coloring c of G is an F-coloring if F(u,v,|c(u)−c(v)|)?0 for every two distinct vertices u and v of G. The maximum color assigned by c to a vertex of G is the value of c, and the F-chromatic number F(G) is the minimum value among all F-colorings of G. For an ordering of the vertices of G, a greedy F-coloring c of s is defined by (1) c(v₁)=1 and (2) for each i with 1?i<n, c(v_i+1) is the smallest positive integer p such that F(v_j,v_i+1,|c(v_j)−p|)?0, for each j with 1?j?i. The greedy F-chromatic number gF(s) of s is the maximum color assigned by c to a vertex of G. The greedy F-chromatic number of G is gF(G)=min{gF(s)} over all orderings s of V. The Grundy F-chromatic number is GF(G)=max{gF(s)} over all orderings s of V. It is shown that gF(G)=F(G) for every graph G and every F-coloring defined on G. The parameters gF(G) and GF(G) are studied and compared for a special case of the C-mapping F on a connected graph G, where δ(u,v) is the distance between u and v and .     

The ω-limit set of a graph map

Let G be a graph and be continuous. Denote by P(f), , ω(f) and Ω(f) the set of periodic points, the closure of the set of periodic points, ω-limit set and non-wandering set of f, respectively. In this paper we show that: (1) v∈ω(f) if and only if v∈P(f) or there exists an open arc L=(v,w) contained in some edge of G such that every open arc U=(v,c)⊂L contains at least 2 points of some trajectory; (2) v∈ω(f) if and only if every open neighborhood of v contains at least r+1 points of some trajectory, where r is the valence of v; (3) ; (4) if , then x has an infinite orbit.     

Colouring games on outerplanar graphs and trees

Let f be a graph function which assigns to each graph H a non-negative integer f(H)≤|V(H)|. The f-game chromatic number of a graph G is defined through a two-person game. Let X be a set of colours. Two players, Alice and Bob, take turns colouring the vertices of G with colours from X. A partial colouring c of G is legal (with respect to graph function f) if for any subgraph H of G, the sum of the number of colours used in H and the number of uncoloured vertices of H is at least f(H). Both Alice and Bob must colour legally (i.e., the partial colouring produced needs to be legal). The game ends if either all the vertices are coloured or there are uncoloured vertices with no legal colour. In the former case, Alice wins the game. In the latter case, Bob wins the game. The f-game chromatic number of G, χ_g(f,G), is the least number of colours that the colour set X needs to contain so that Alice has a winning strategy. Let be the graph function defined as , for any n≥3 and otherwise. Then is called the acyclic game chromatic number of G. In this paper, we prove that any outerplanar graph G has acyclic game chromatic number at most 7. For any integer k, let ?_k be the graph function defined as ?_k(K₂)=2 and ?_k(P_k)=3 (P_k is the path on k vertices) and ?_k(H)=0 otherwise. This paper proves that if k≥8 then for any tree T, χ_g(?_k,T)≤9. On the other hand, if k≤6, then for any integer n, there is a tree T such that χ_g(?_k,T)≥n.     

Homomorphisms from sparse graphs to the Petersen graph

Let G be a graph and let c: be an assignment of 2-elements subsets of the set {1,…,5} to the vertices of G such that for any two adjacent vertices u and v,c(u) and c(v) are disjoint. Call such a coloring c a (5, 2)-coloring of G. A graph is (5,2)-colorable if and only if it has a homomorphism to the Petersen graph.The maximum average degree of G is defined as . In this paper, we prove that every triangle-free graph with is homomorphic to the Petersen graph. In other words, such a graph is (5, 2)-colorable. Moreover, we show that the bound on the maximum average degree in our result is best possible.     

Matching properties in connected domination critical graphs

A dominating set of vertices S of a graph G is connected if the subgraph G[S] is connected. Let γ_c(G) denote the size of any smallest connected dominating set in G. A graph G is k-γ-connected-critical if γ_c(G)=k, but if any edge is added to G, then γ_c(G+e)?k-1. This is a variation on the earlier concept of criticality of edge addition with respect to ordinary domination where a graph G was defined to be k-critical if the domination number of G is k, but if any edge is added to G, the domination number falls to k-1.A graph G is factor-critical if G-v has a perfect matching for every vertex v∈V(G), bicritical if G-u-v has a perfect matching for every pair of distinct vertices u,v∈V(G) or, more generally, k-factor-critical if, for every set S⊆V(G) with |S|=k, the graph G-S contains a perfect matching. In two previous papers [N. Ananchuen, M.D. Plummer, Matching properties in domination critical graphs, Discrete Math. 277 (2004) 1-13; N. Ananchuen, M.D. Plummer, 3-factor-criticality in domination critical graphs, Discrete Math. 2007, to appear [3].] on ordinary (i.e., not necessarily connected) domination, the first and third authors showed that under certain assumptions regarding connectivity and minimum degree, a critical graph G with (ordinary) domination number 3 will be factor-critical (if |V(G)| is odd), bicritical (if |V(G)| is even) or 3-factor-critical (again if |V(G)| is odd). Analogous theorems for connected domination are presented here. Although domination and connected domination are similar in some ways, we will point out some interesting differences between our new results for the case of connected domination and the results in [N. Ananchuen, M.D. Plummer, Matching properties in domination critical graphs, Discrete Math. 277 (2004) 1-13; N. Ananchuen, M.D. Plummer, 3-factor-criticality in domination critical graphs, Discrete Math. 2007, to appear [3].].     

Note on robust critical graphs with large odd girth

A graph G is (k+1)-critical if it is not k-colourable but G−e is k-colourable for any edge e∈E(G). In this paper we show that for any integers k≥3 and l≥5 there exists a constant c=c(k,l)>0, such that for all , there exists a (k+1)-critical graph G on n vertices with and odd girth at least ?, which can be made (k−1)-colourable only by the omission of at least cn² edges.     

Edge covered critical multigraphs

Let G be a multigraph with edge set E(G). An edge coloring C of G is called an edge covered coloring, if each color appears at least once at each vertex v∈V(G). The maximum positive integer k such that G has a k edge covered coloring is called the edge covered chromatic index of G and is denoted by . A graph G is said to be of class if and otherwise of class. A pair of vertices {u,v} is said to be critical if . A graph G is said to be edge covered critical if it is of class and every edge with vertices in V(G) not belonging to E(G) is critical. Some properties about edge covered critical graphs are considered.     

On cyclic edge-connectivity of transitive graphs

A cyclic edge-cut of a graph G is an edge set, the removal of which separates two cycles. If G has a cyclic edge-cut, then it is said to be cyclically separable. For a cyclically separable graph G, the cyclic edge-connectivity cλ(G) is the cardinality of a minimum cyclic edge-cut of G. In this paper, we first prove that for any cyclically separable graph G, , where ω(X) is the number of edges with one end in X and the other end in V(G)?X. A cyclically separable graph G with cλ(G)=ζ(G) is said to be cyclically optimal. The main results in this paper are: any connected k-regular vertex-transitive graph with k≥4 and girth at least 5 is cyclically optimal; any connected edge-transitive graph with minimum degree at least 4 and order at least 6 is cyclically optimal.     

On hamiltonian colorings for some graphs

For a connected graph G and any two vertices u and v in G, let D(u,v) denote the length of a longest u-v path in G. A hamiltonian coloring of a connected graph G of order n is an assignment c of colors (positive integers) to the vertices of G such that |c(u)−c(v)|+D(u,v)≥n−1 for every two distinct vertices u and v in G. The value of a hamiltonian coloring c is the maximum color assigned to a vertex of G. The hamiltonian chromatic number of G is taken over all hamiltonian colorings c of G. In this paper we discuss the hamiltonian chromatic number of graphs G with . As examples, we determine the hamiltonian chromatic number for a class of caterpillars, and double stars.     

On the spanning fan-connectivity of graphs

Let G be a graph. The connectivity of G, κ(G), is the maximum integer k such that there exists a k-container between any two different vertices. A k-container of G between u and v, C_k(u,v), is a set of k-internally-disjoint paths between u and v. A spanning container is a container that spans V(G). A graph G is k^∗-connected if there exists a spanning k-container between any two different vertices. The spanning connectivity of G, κ^∗(G), is the maximum integer k such that G is w^∗-connected for 1≤w≤k if G is 1^∗-connected.Let x be a vertex in G and let U={y₁,y₂,…,y_k} be a subset of V(G) where x is not in U. A spanningk−(x,U)-fan, F_k(x,U), is a set of internally-disjoint paths {P₁,P₂,…,P_k} such that P_i is a path connecting x to y_i for 1≤i≤k and . A graph G is k^∗-fan-connected (or -connected) if there exists a spanning F_k(x,U)-fan for every choice of x and U with |U|=k and x∉U. The spanning fan-connectivity of a graph G, , is defined as the largest integer k such that G is -connected for 1≤w≤k if G is -connected.In this paper, some relationship between κ(G), κ^∗(G), and are discussed. Moreover, some sufficient conditions for a graph to be -connected are presented. Furthermore, we introduce the concept of a spanning pipeline-connectivity and discuss some sufficient conditions for a graph to be k^∗-pipeline-connected.     

Rainbow domination on trees

This paper studies a variation of domination in graphs called rainbow domination. For a positive integer k, a k-rainbow dominating function of a graph G is a function f from V(G) to the set of all subsets of {1,2,…,k} such that for any vertex v with f(v)=0? we have ∪_u∈NG(v)f(u)={1,2,…,k}. The 1-rainbow domination is the same as the ordinary domination. The k-rainbow domination problem is to determine the k-rainbow domination number of a graph G, that is the minimum value of ∑_v∈V(G)|f(v)| where f runs over all k-rainbow dominating functions of G. In this paper, we prove that the k-rainbow domination problem is NP-complete even when restricted to chordal graphs or bipartite graphs. We then give a linear-time algorithm for the k-rainbow domination problem on trees. For a given tree T, we also determine the smallest k such that .     

The 6-relaxed game chromatic number of outerplanar graphs

Suppose G is a graph and k,d are integers. The (k,d)-relaxed colouring game on G is a game played by two players, Alice and Bob, who take turns colouring the vertices of G with legal colours from a set X of k colours. Here a colour i is legal for an uncoloured vertex x if after colouring x with colour i, the subgraph induced by vertices of colour i has maximum degree at most d. Alice’s goal is to have all the vertices coloured, and Bob’s goal is the opposite: to have an uncoloured vertex without a legal colour. The d-relaxed game chromatic number of G, denoted by , is the least number k so that when playing the (k,d)-relaxed colouring game on G, Alice has a winning strategy. This paper proves that if G is an outerplanar graph, then for d≥6.     

Rainbowness of cubic plane graphs

The rainbowness, rb(G), of a connected plane graph G is the minimum number k such that any colouring of vertices of the graph G using at least k colours involves a face all vertices of which receive distinct colours. For a connected cubic plane graph G we prove that