On the greatest number of 2 and 3 colorings of a (v,e)-graph

Let F denote the family of simple undirected graphs on v vertices having e edges ((v, e)-graphs) and P(λ, G) be the chromatic polynomial of a graph G. For the given integers v, e, Δ, let f(v, e, Δ) denote the greatest number of proper colorings in Δ or less colors that a (v, e)-graph G can have, i.e., f(v, e, Δ) = max{P(Δ, G): G ∈ F}. In this paper we determine f(v, e, 2) and describe all graphs G for which P(2, G) = f(v, e, 2). For f(v, e, 3), a lower bound and an upper bound are found.