A squarefree word is a sequence $w$ of symbols such that there are no strings $x, y$, and $z$ for which $w=xyyz$. A nonrepetitive coloring of a graph is an edge coloring in which the sequence of colors along any open path is squarefree. We show that determining whether a graph $G$ has a nonrepetitive $k$-coloring is $Σ_2^p$-complete. When we restrict to paths of lengths at most $n$, the problem becomes NP-complete for fixed $n$.
In this paper, we obtain polynomial time algorithms to determine the acyclic chromatic number, the star chromatic number, the Thue chromatic number, the harmonious chromatic number and the clique chromatic number of $P_4$-tidy graphs and $(q,q-4)$-graphs, for every fixed $q$. These classes include cographs, $P_4$-sparse and $P_4$-lite graphs. All these coloring problems are known to be NP-hard for general graphs. These algorithms are fixed parameter tractable on the parameter $q(G)$, which is the minimum $q$ such that $G$ is a $(q,q-4)$-graph. We also prove that every connected $(q,q-4)$-graph…
For an integer $r>0$, a conditional $(k,r)$-coloring of a graph $G$ is a proper $k$-coloring of the vertices of $G$ such that every vertex $v$ of degree $d(v)$ in $G$ is adjacent to vertices with at least $min\{r, d(v)\}$ different colors. The smallest integer $k$ for which a graph $G$ has a conditional $(k,r)$-coloring is called the $r$th order conditional chromatic number, denoted by $χ_r(G)$. It is easy to see that the conditional coloring is a generalization of the traditional vertex coloring for which $r=1$. In this paper, we consider the complexity of the conditional colorings of graphs.…
Let $G$ be a graph such that each edge has its list of available colors, and assume that each list is a subset of the common set consisting of $k$ colors. Suppose that we are given two list edge-colorings $f_0$ and $f_r$ of $G$, and asked whether there exists a sequence of list edge-colorings of $G$ between $f_0$ and $f_r$ such that each list edge-coloring can be obtained from the previous one by changing a color assignment of exactly one edge. This problem is known to be PSPACE-complete for every integer $k \ge 6$ and planar graphs of maximum degree three, but any complexity hardness was unkn…
A graph is $H$-free if it does not contain an induced subgraph isomorphic to $H$. We denote by $P_k$ and $C_k$ the path and the cycle on $k$ vertices, respectively. In this paper, we prove that 4-COLORING is NP-complete for $P_7$-free graphs, and that 5-COLORING is NP-complete for $P_6$-free graphs. These two results improve all previous results on $k$-coloring $P_t$-free graphs, and almost complete the classification of complexity of $k$-COLORING $P_t$-free graphs for $k\ge 4$ and $t\ge 1$, leaving as the only missing case 4-COLORING $P_6$-free graphs. We expect that 4-COLORING is polynomial …
We investigate the relationship between two kinds of vertex colorings of graphs: unique-maximum colorings and conflict-free colorings. In a unique-maximum coloring, the colors are ordered, and in every path of the graph the maximum color appears only once. In a conflict-free coloring, in every path of the graph there is a color that appears only once. We also study computational complexity aspects of conflict-free colorings and prove a completeness result. Finally, we improve lower bounds for those chromatic numbers of the grid graph.
This work establishes the complexity class of several instances of the S-packing coloring problem: for a graph G, a positive integer k and a non decreasing list of integers S = (s\_1 , ..., s\_k ), G is S-colorable, if its vertices can be partitioned into sets S\_i , i = 1,... , k, where each S\_i being a s\_i -packing (a set of vertices at pairwise distance greater than s\_i). For a list of three integers, a dichotomy between NP-complete problems and polynomial time solvable problems is determined for subcubic graphs. Moreover, for an unfixed size of list, the complexity of the S-packing colo…
For a fixed digraph $\mathbb H$, the $\mathbb H$-coloring problem is the problem of deciding whether a given input digraph $\mathbb G$ admits a homomorphism to $\mathbb H$. The CSP dichotomy conjecture of Feder and Vardi is equivalent to proving that, for any $\mathbb H$, the $\mathbb H$-coloring problem is in in P or NP-complete. We confirm this dichotomy for a certain class of oriented trees, which we call special trees (generalizing earlier results on special triads and polyads). Moreover, we prove that every tractable special oriented tree has bounded width, i.e., the corresponding $\mathb…
We prove #P-completeness results for counting edge colorings on simple graphs. These strengthen the corresponding results on multigraphs from [4]. We prove that for any $κ\ge r \ge 3$ counting $κ$-edge colorings on $r$-regular simple graphs is #P-complete. Furthermore, we show that for planar $r$-regular simple graphs where $r \in \{3, 4, 5\}$ counting edge colorings with \k{appa} colors for any $κ\ge r$ is also #P-complete. As there are no planar $r$-regular simple graphs for any $r > 5$, these statements cover all interesting cases in terms of the parameters $(κ, r)$.
A packing $k$-coloring for some integer $k$ of a graph $G=(V,E)$ is a mapping $φ:V\to\{1,\ldots,k\}$ such that any two vertices $u, v$ of color $φ(u)=φ(v)$ are in distance at least $φ(u)+1$. This concept is motivated by frequency assignment problems. The \emph{packing chromatic number} of $G$ is the smallest $k$ such that there exists a packing $k$-coloring of $G$. Fiala and Golovach showed that determining the packing chromatic number for chordal graphs is \NP-complete for diameter exactly 5. While the problem is easy to solve for diameter 2, we show \NP-completeness for any diameter at least…
We show that computing the lexicographically first four-coloring for planar graphs is P^{NP}-hard. This result optimally improves upon a result of Khuller and Vazirani who prove this problem to be NP-hard, and conclude that it is not self-reducible in the sense of Schnorr, assuming P \neq NP. We discuss this application to non-self-reducibility and provide a general related result.
J. Makowsky and B. Zilber (2004) showed that many variations of graph colorings, called CP-colorings in the sequel, give rise to graph polynomials. This is true in particular for harmonious colorings, convex colorings, mcc_t-colorings, and rainbow colorings, and many more. N. Linial (1986) showed that the chromatic polynomial $χ(G;X)$ is #P-hard to evaluate for all but three values X=0,1,2, where evaluation is in P. This dichotomy includes evaluation at real or complex values, and has the further property that the set of points for which evaluation is in P is finite. We investigate how the com…
Coloring games are combinatorial games where the players alternate painting uncolored vertices of a graph one of $k > 0$ colors. Each different ruleset specifies that game's coloring constraints. This paper investigates six impartial rulesets (five new), derived from previously-studied graph coloring schemes, including proper map coloring, oriented coloring, 2-distance coloring, weak coloring, and sequential coloring. For each, we study the outcome classes for special cases and general computational complexity. In some cases we pay special attention to the Grundy function.
The Parameterized Complexity of Vertex-Coloring Edge-Weighting
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Hyderabad（印度理工学院海德拉巴分校计算机科学与工程系）；School of Computer Science, University of Leads（利兹大学计算机学院）；Chennai Mathematical Institute（金奈数学研究所）
Given a simple undirected graph $G=(V,E)$ and a partition of the vertex set $V$ into $p$ parts, the \textsc{Partition Coloring Problem} asks if we can select one vertex from each part of the partition such that the chromatic number of the subgraph induced on the $p$ selected vertices is bounded by $k$. PCP is a generalized problem of the classical \textsc{Vertex Coloring Problem} and has applications in many areas, such as scheduling and encoding etc. In this paper, we show the complexity status of the \textsc{Partition Coloring Problem} with three parameters: the number of colors, the number …
Let $G=(V,E)$ be a graph with no isolated vertices. A vertex $v$ totally dominate a vertex $w$ ($w \ne v$), if $v$ is adjacent to $w$. A set $D \subseteq V$ called a total dominating set of $G$ if every vertex $v\in V$ is totally dominated by some vertex in $D$. The minimum cardinality of a total dominating set is the total domination number of $G$ and is denoted by $γ_t(G)$. A total dominator coloring of graph $G$ is a proper coloring of vertices of $G$, so that each vertex totally dominates some color class. The total dominator chromatic number $χ_{td}(G)$ of $G$ is the least number of color…
We show that the $b$-Coloring problem is complete for the class XNLP when parameterized by the pathwidth of the input graph. Besides determining the precise parameterized complexity of this problem, this implies that b-Coloring parameterized by pathwidth is $W[t]$-hard for all $t$, and resolves the parameterized complexity of $b$-Coloring parameterized by treewidth.
We show that an effective version of Siegel's Theorem on finiteness of integer solutions and an application of elementary Galois theory are key ingredients in a complexity classification of some Holant problems. These Holant problems, denoted by Holant(f), are defined by a symmetric ternary function f that is invariant under any permutation of the k >= 3 domain elements. We prove that Holant(f) exhibits a complexity dichotomy. This dichotomy holds even when restricted to planar graphs. A special case of this result is that counting edge k-colorings is #P-hard over planar 3-regular graphs for k…
We revisit the complexity of the classical $k$-Coloring problem parameterized by clique-width. This is a very well-studied problem that becomes highly intractable when the number of colors $k$ is large. However, much less is known on its complexity for small, concrete values of $k$. In this paper, we completely determine the complexity of $k$-Coloring parameterized by clique-width for any fixed $k$, under the SETH. Specifically, we show that for all $k\ge 3,ε>0$, $k$-Coloring cannot be solved in time $O^*((2^k-2-ε)^{cw})$, and give an algorithm running in time $O^*((2^k-2)^{cw})$. Thus, if the…
Given a graph G, a q-open neighborhood conflict-free coloring or q-ONCF-coloring is a vertex coloring $c:V(G) \rightarrow \{1,2,\ldots,q\}$ such that for each vertex $v \in V(G)$ there is a vertex in $N(v)$ that is uniquely colored from the rest of the vertices in $N(v)$. When we replace $N(v)$ by the closed neighborhood $N[v]$, then we call such a coloring a q-closed neighborhood conflict-free coloring or simply q-CNCF-coloring. In this paper, we study the NP-hard decision questions of whether for a constant q an input graph has a q-ONCF-coloring or a q-CNCF-coloring. We will study these two …
The $q$-Coloring problem asks whether the vertices of a graph can be properly colored with $q$ colors. Lokshtanov et al. [SODA 2011] showed that $q$-Coloring on graphs with a feedback vertex set of size $k$ cannot be solved in time $\mathcal{O}^*((q-\varepsilon)^k)$, for any $\varepsilon > 0$, unless the Strong Exponential-Time Hypothesis (SETH) fails. In this paper we perform a fine-grained analysis of the complexity of $q$-Coloring with respect to a hierarchy of parameters. We show that even when parameterized by the vertex cover number, $q$ must appear in the base of the exponent: Unless ET…
We strengthen a result by Laskar and Lyle (Discrete Appl. Math. (2009), 330-338) by proving that it is NP-complete to decide whether a bipartite planar graph can be partitioned into three independent dominating sets. In contrast, we show that this is always possible for every maximal outerplanar graph with at least three vertices. Moreover, we extend their previous result by proving that deciding whether a bipartite graph can be partitioned into $k$ independent dominating sets is NP-complete for every $k \geq 3$. We also strengthen a result by Henning et al. (Discrete Math. (2009), 6451-6458) …
In the \probrFix problem, we are given a graph $G$, a (non-proper) vertex-coloring $c : V(G) \to [r]$, and a positive integer $k$. The goal is to decide whether a proper $r$-coloring $c'$ is obtainable from $c$ by recoloring at most $k$ vertices of $G$. Recently, Junosza-Szaniawski, Liedloff, and Rz{ą}{ż}ewski [SOFSEM 2015] asked whether the problem has a polynomial kernel parameterized by the number of recolorings $k$. In a full version of the manuscript, the authors together with Garnero and Montealegre, answered the question in the negative: for every $r \geq 3$, the problem \probrFix does …
Suppose we have a family ${\cal F}$ of sets. For every $S \in {\cal F}$, a set $D \subseteq S$ is a {\sf defining set} for $({\cal F},S)$ if $S$ is the only element of $\cal{F}$ that contains $D$ as a subset. This concept has been studied in numerous cases, such as vertex colorings, perfect matchings, dominating sets, block designs, geodetics, orientations, and Latin squares. In this paper, first, we propose the concept of a defining set of a logical formula, and we prove that the computational complexity of such a problem is $Σ_2$-complete. We also show that the computational complexity of th…
A $b$-coloring of a graph $G$ is a proper coloring of its vertices such that each color class contains a vertex that has at least one neighbor in all the other color classes. The b-Coloring problem asks whether a graph $G$ has a $b$-coloring with $k$ colors. The $b$-chromatic number of a graph $G$, denoted by $χ_b(G)$, is the maximum number $k$ such that $G$ admits a $b$-coloring with $k$ colors. We consider the complexity of the b-Coloring problem, whenever the value of $k$ is close to one of two upper bounds on $χ_b(G)$: The maximum degree $Δ(G)$ plus one, and the $m$-degree, denoted by $m(G…
We consider the algorithmic complexity of recognizing bipartite temporal graphs. Rather than defining these graphs solely by their underlying graph or individual layers, we define a bipartite temporal graph as one in which every layer can be 2-colored in a way that results in few changes between any two consecutive layers. This approach follows the framework of multistage problems that has received a growing amount of attention in recent years. We investigate the complexity of recognizing these graphs. We show that this problem is NP-hard even if there are only two layers or if only one change…
Over the past 30 years numerous algorithms have been designed for symmetry breaking problems in the LOCAL model, such as maximal matching, MIS, vertex coloring, and edge-coloring. For most problems the best randomized algorithm is at least exponentially faster than the best deterministic algorithm. In this paper we prove that these exponential gaps are necessary and establish connections between the deterministic and randomized complexities in the LOCAL model. Each result has a very compelling take-away message: 1. Fast $Δ$-coloring of trees requires random bits: Building on the recent lower b…
This paper studies the kernelization complexity of graph coloring problems with respect to certain structural parameterizations of the input instances. We are interested in how well polynomial-time data reduction can provably shrink instances of coloring problems, in terms of the chosen parameter. It is well known that deciding 3-colorability is already NP-complete, hence parameterizing by the requested number of colors is not fruitful. Instead, we pick up on a research thread initiated by Cai (DAM, 2003) who studied coloring problems parameterized by the modification distance of the input gra…
The game domination number is a graph invariant that arises from a game, which is related to graph domination in a similar way as the game chromatic number is related to graph coloring. In this paper we show that verifying whether the game domination number of a graph is bounded by a given integer is PSPACE-complete. This contrasts the situation of the game coloring problem whose complexity is still unknown.
The first-fit coloring is a heuristic that assigns to each vertex, arriving in a specified order $σ$, the smallest available color. The problem Grundy Coloring asks how many colors are needed for the most adversarial vertex ordering $σ$, i.e., the maximum number of colors that the first-fit coloring requires over all possible vertex orderings. Since its inception by Grundy in 1939, Grundy Coloring has been examined for its structural and algorithmic aspects. A brute-force $f(k)n^{2^{k-1}}$-time algorithm for Grundy Coloring on general graphs is not difficult to obtain, where $k$ is the number …
We study the complexity of the problems of finding, given a graph $G$, a largest induced subgraph of $G$ with all degrees odd (called an odd subgraph), and the smallest number of odd subgraphs that partition $V(G)$. We call these parameters ${\sf mos}(G)$ and $χ_{\sf odd}(G)$, respectively. We prove that deciding whether $χ_{\sf odd}(G) \leq q$ is polynomial-time solvable if $q \leq 2$, and NP-complete otherwise. We provide algorithms in time $2^{O({\sf rw})} \cdot n^{O(1)}$ and $2^{O(q \cdot {\sf rw})} \cdot n^{O(1)}$ to compute ${\sf mos}(G)$ and to decide whether $χ_{\sf odd}(G) \leq q$ on …
The Promise Constraint Satisfaction Problem (PCSP) is a recently introduced vast generalization of the Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP). We investigate the computational complexity of a class of PCSPs beyond the most studied cases - approximation variants of satisfiability and graph coloring problems. We give an almost complete classification for the class of PCSPs of the form: given a 3-uniform hypergraph that has an admissible 2-coloring, find an admissible 3-coloring, where admissibility is given by a ternary symmetric relation. The only PCSP of this sort whose complexity is left open …
Many practical problems in almost all scientific and technological disciplines have been classified as computationally hard (NP-hard or even NP-complete). In life sciences, combinatorial optimization problems frequently arise in molecular biology, e.g., genome sequencing; global alignment of multiple genomes; identifying siblings or discovery of dysregulated pathways.In almost all of these problems, there is the need for proving a hypothesis about certain property of an object that can be present only when it adopts some particular admissible structure (an NP-certificate) or be absent (no admi…
The \emph{Square Colouring} of a graph $G$ refers to colouring of vertices of a graph such that any two distinct vertices which are at distance at most two receive different colours. In this paper, we initiate the study of a related colouring problem called the \emph{subset square colouring} of graphs. Broadly, the subset square colouring of a graph studies the square colouring of a dominating set of a graph using $q$ colours. Here, the aim is to optimize the number of colours used. This also generalizes the well-studied Efficient Dominating Set problem. We show that the q-Subset Square Colour…
Digraphs H for which the list homomorphism problem with template H (LHOM(H)) is in logspace (L) was characterized by Egri et al. (SODA 2014): LHOM(H) is in L if and only if H does not contain a circular N (assuming L is different from NL). Undirected graphs for which LHOM(H) is in L can be characterized in terms forbidden induced subgraphs, and also via a simple inductive construction (Egri et al., STACS 2010). As a consequence, the logspace algorithm in the undirected case is simple and easy to understand. No such forbidden subgraph or inductive characterization, and no such simple and easy-t…
We study a certain relaxation of the classic vertex coloring problem, namely, a coloring of vertices of undirected, simple graphs, such that there are no monochromatic triangles. We give the first classification of the problem in terms of classic and parametrized algorithms. Several computational complexity results are also presented, which improve on the previous results found in the literature. We propose the new structural parameter for undirected, simple graphs -- the triangle-free chromatic number $χ_3$. We bound $χ_3$ by other known structural parameters. We also present two classes of g…
A graph is weakly $2$-colored if the nodes are labeled with colors black and white such that each black node is adjacent to at least one white node and vice versa. In this work we study the distributed computational complexity of weak $2$-coloring in the standard LOCAL model of distributed computing, and how it is related to the distributed computational complexity of other graph problems. First, we show that weak $2$-coloring is a minimal distributed symmetry-breaking problem for regular even-degree trees and high-girth graphs: if there is any non-trivial locally checkable labeling problem th…
We study the graph coloring problem over random graphs of finite average connectivity $c$. Given a number $q$ of available colors, we find that graphs with low connectivity admit almost always a proper coloring whereas graphs with high connectivity are uncolorable. Depending on $q$, we find the precise value of the critical average connectivity $c_q$. Moreover, we show that below $c_q$ there exist a clustering phase $c\in [c_d,c_q]$ in which ground states spontaneously divide into an exponential number of clusters and where the proliferation of metastable states is responsible for the onset of…
In the multicoloring problem, also known as ($a$:$b$)-coloring or $b$-fold coloring, we are given a graph G and a set of $a$ colors, and the task is to assign a subset of $b$ colors to each vertex of G so that adjacent vertices receive disjoint color subsets. This natural generalization of the classic coloring problem (the $b=1$ case) is equivalent to finding a homomorphism to the Kneser graph $KG_{a,b}$, and gives relaxations approaching the fractional chromatic number. We study the complexity of determining whether a graph has an ($a$:$b$)-coloring. Our main result is that this problem does …
Given a graph $G$, a proper $k$-coloring of $G$ is a partition $c = (S_i)_{i\in [1,k]}$ of $V(G)$ into $k$ stable sets $S_1,\ldots, S_{k}$. Given a weight function $w: V(G) \to \mathbb{R}^+$, the weight of a color $S_i$ is defined as $w(i) = \max_{v \in S_i} w(v)$ and the weight of a coloring $c$ as $w(c) = \sum_{i=1}^{k}w(i)$. Guan and Zhu [Inf. Process. Lett., 1997] defined the weighted chromatic number of a pair $(G,w)$, denoted by $σ(G,w)$, as the minimum weight of a proper coloring of $G$. For a positive integer $r$, they also defined $σ(G,w;r)$ as the minimum of $w(c)$ among all proper $…
Although it has been evidenced that DNA computing is able to solve the graph coloring problem in a polynomial time complexity, but the exponential solution space is still a restrictive factor in applying this technique for solving really large problems. In this paper a modified DNA computing approach based on Adleman-Lipton model is proposed which tackles the mentioned restriction by coloring the vertices one by one. In each step, it expands the DNA strands encoding promising solutions and discards those which encode infeasible ones. A sample graph is colored by simulating the proposed approac…
We study the following question: Given are two $k$-colorings $α$ and $β$ of a graph $G$ on $n$ vertices, and integer $\ell$. The question is whether $α$ can be modified into $β$, by recoloring vertices one at a time, while maintaining a $k$-coloring throughout, and using at most $\ell$ such recoloring steps. This problem is weakly PSPACE-hard for every constant $k\ge 4$. We show that it is also strongly NP-hard for every constant $k\ge 4$. On the positive side, we give an $O(f(k,\ell) n^{O(1)})$ algorithm for the problem, for some computable function $f$. Hence the problem is fixed-parameter t…
In Defective Coloring we are given a graph $G = (V, E)$ and two integers $χ_d, Δ^*$ and are asked if we can partition $V$ into $χ_d$ color classes, so that each class induces a graph of maximum degree $Δ^*$. We investigate the complexity of this generalization of Coloring with respect to several well-studied graph parameters, and show that the problem is W-hard parameterized by treewidth, pathwidth, tree-depth, or feedback vertex set, if $χ_d = 2$. As expected, this hardness can be extended to larger values of $χ_d$ for most of these parameters, with one surprising exception: we show that the …
We present fixed parameter tractable algorithms for the conflict-free coloring problem on graphs. Given a graph $G=(V,E)$, \emph{conflict-free coloring} of $G$ refers to coloring a subset of $V$ such that for every vertex $v$, there is a color that is assigned to exactly one vertex in the closed neighborhood of $v$. The \emph{k-Conflict-free Coloring} problem is to decide whether $G$ can be conflict-free colored using at most $k$ colors. This problem is NP-hard even for $k=1$ and therefore under standard complexity theoretic assumptions, FPT algorithms do not exist when parameterised by the so…
