Abstract: | In 2003, Kostochka, Pelsmajer, and West introduced a list analogue of equitable coloring called equitable choosability. In this paper, we motivate and define a new list analogue of equitable coloring called proportional choosability. A -assignment for a graph specifies a list of available colors for each vertex of . An -coloring assigns a color to each vertex from its list . For each color , let be the number of vertices whose list contains . A proportional-coloring of is a proper -coloring in which each color is used or times. A graph is proportionally-choosable if a proportional -coloring of exists whenever is a -assignment for . We show that if a graph is proportionally -choosable, then every subgraph of is also proportionally -choosable and also is proportionally -choosable, unlike equitable choosability for which analogous claims would be false. We also show that any graph is proportionally -choosable whenever , and we use matching theory to completely characterize the proportional choosability of stars and the disjoint union of cliques. |