In 1977, Wegner conjectured that the chromatic number of the square of every planar graph $G$ with maximum degree $Δ\ge8$ is at most $\bigl\lfloor\frac32Δ\bigr\rfloor+1$. We show that it is at most $\frac32 Δ(1+o(1))$ (where the $o(1)$ is as $Δ\to+\infty$), and indeed that this is true for the list chromatic number and for more general classes of graphs.
We prove that the list chromatic index of a graph of maximum degree $Δ$ and treewidth $\leq \sqrt{2Δ} -3$ is $Δ$; and that the total chromatic number of a graph of maximum degree $Δ$ and treewidth $\leq Δ/3 +1$ is $Δ+1$. This improves results by Meeks and Scott.
This paper proves that for each positive integer $m$, there is a planar graph $G$ which is not $(4m+\lfloor \frac{2m-1}{9}\rfloor,m)$-choosable. Then we pose some conjectures concerning multiple list colouring of planar graphs.
Alon et al. introduced the concept of non-repetitive colourings of graphs. Here we address some questions regarding non-repetitive colourings of planar graphs. Specifically, we show that the faces of any outerplanar map can be non-repetitively coloured using at most five colours. We also give some lower bounds for the number of colours required to non-repetitively colour the vertices of both outerplanar and planar graphs.
This paper proves that for each positive integer $m$, there is a triangle-free planar graph $G$ which is not $(3m+ \lceil \frac m{17} \rceil-1, m)$-choosable.
This paper disproves a conjecture of Wang, Wu, Yan and Xie, and answers in negative a question in Dvorak, Pekarek and Sereni. In return, we pose five open problems.
This paper proves the following result: If $G$ is a planar graph and $L$ is a $4$-list assignment of $G$ such that $|L(x) \cap L(y)| \le 2$ for every edge $xy$, then $G$ is $L$-colourable. This answers a question asked by Kratochvíl, Tuza and Voigt in [Journal of Graph Theory, 27(1):43--49, 1998].
The notion of a Galvin orientation of a line graph is introduced, generalizing the idea used by Galvin in his landmark proof of the list-edge-colouring conjecture for bipartite graphs. If L(G) has a proper Galvin orientation with respect to k, then it immediately implies that G is k-list-edge-colourable, but the converse is not true. The stronger property is studied in graphs of the form `bipartite plus an edge', the Petersen graph, cliques, and simple graphs without odd cycles of length 5 or longer.
Let $G$ be a graph on $n$ vertices and let $\mathcal{L}_k$ be an arbitrary function that assigns each vertex in $G$ a list of $k$ colours. Then $G$ is $\mathcal{L}_k$-list colourable if there exists a proper colouring of the vertices of $G$ such that every vertex is coloured with a colour from its own list. We say $G$ is $k$-choosable if for every such function $\mathcal{L}_k$, $G$ is $\mathcal{L}_k$-list colourable. The minimum $k$ such that $G$ is $k$-choosable is called the list chromatic number of $G$ and is denoted by $χ_L(G)$. Let $χ_L(G) = s$ and let $t$ be a positive integer less than …
Ohba has conjectured \cite{ohb} that if the graph $G$ has $2χ(G)+1$ or fewer vertices then the list chromatic number and chromatic number of $G$ are equal. In this paper we prove that this conjecture is asymptotically correct. More precisely we obtain that for any $0<ε<1$, there exist an $n_0=n_0(ε)$ such that the list chromatic number of $G$ equals its chromatic number, provided $$n_0 \leq |V(G) | \le (2-ε)χ(G).$$
The odd colouring number is a new graph parameter introduced by Petruševski and Škrekovski. In this note, we show that graphs with so called product structure have bounded odd-colouring number. By known results on the product structure of $k$-planar graphs, this implies that $k$-planar graphs have bounded odd-colouring number, which answers a question of Cranston, Lafferty, and Song.
Let $G$ be a simple planar graph of maximum degree $Δ$, let $t$ be a positive integer, and let $L$ be an edge list assignment on $G$ with $|L(e)| \geq Δ+t$ for all $e \in E(G)$. We prove that if $H$ is a subgraph of $G$ that has been $L$-edge-coloured, then the edge-precolouring can be extended to an $L$-edge-colouring of $G$, provided that $H$ has maximum degree $d\leq t$ and either $d \leq t-4$ or $Δ$ is large enough ($Δ\geq 16+d$ suffices). If $d>t$, there are examples for any choice of $Δ$ where the extension is impossible.
We generalize a framework of list colouring results to correspondence colouring. Correspondence colouring is a generalization of list colouring wherein we localize the meaning of the colours available to each vertex. As pointed out by Dvořák and Postle, both of Thomassen's theorems on the 5-choosability of planar graphs and 3-choosability of planar graphs of girth at least five carry over to the correspondence colouring setting. In this paper, we show that the family of graphs that are critical for 5-correspondence colouring as well as the family of graphs of girth at least five that are criti…
A list assignment $L$ for a graph $G$ is an $(\ell,k)$-list assignment if $|L(v)|\geq \ell$ for each $v \in V(G)$ and $|L(u) \cap L(v)| \leq k$ for each $uv \in E(G)$. We say $G$ is $(\ell,k)$-choosable if it admits an $L$-colouring for every $(\ell, k)$-list assignment $L$. We prove that if $G$ is a planar graph with $(4,2)$-list assignment $L$ and for every triangle $T \subseteq G$ we have that $|\bigcap_{v \in V(T)} L(v)| \neq 2$, then $G$ is $L$-colourable. In fact, we prove a slightly stronger result: if $G$ contains a clique $H$ such that $V(H) \cap V(T) \neq \emptyset$ for every triangl…
We restate theorems of Hutchinson on list-colouring extendability for outerplanar graphs in terms of non-vanishing monomials in a graph polynomial, which yields an Alon-Tarsi equivalent for her work. This allows to simplify her proofs as well as obtain more general results.
A strong edge-colouring of a graph is a proper edge-colouring where each colour class induces a matching. It is known that every planar graph with maximum degree $Δ$ has a strong edge-colouring with at most $4Δ+4$ colours. We show that $3Δ+1$ colours suffice if the graph has girth 6, and $4Δ$ colours suffice if $Δ\geq 7$ or the girth is at least 5. In the last part of the paper, we raise some questions related to a long-standing conjecture of Vizing on proper edge-colouring of planar graphs.
We prove two distinct and natural refinements of a recent breakthrough result of Molloy (and a follow-up work of Bernshteyn) on the (list) chromatic number of triangle-free graphs. In both our results, we permit the amount of colour made available to vertices of lower degree to be accordingly lower. One result concerns list colouring and correspondence colouring, while the other concerns fractional colouring. Our proof of the second illustrates the use of the hard-core model to prove a Johansson-type result, which may be of independent interest.
Petruševski and Škrekovski \cite{odd9} recently introduced the notion of an odd colouring of a graph: a proper vertex colouring of a graph $G$ is said to be \emph{odd} if for each non-isolated vertex $x \in V(G)$ there exists a colour $c$ appearing an odd number of times in $N(x)$. Petruševski and Škrekovski proved that for any planar graph $G$ there is an odd colouring using at most $9$ colours and, together with Caro \cite{oddremarks}, showed that $8$ colours are enough for a significant family of planar graphs. We show that $8$ colours suffice for all planar graphs.
Assume $G$ is a graph. We view $G$ as a symmetric digraph, in which each edge $uv$ of $G$ is replaced by a pair of opposite arcs $e=(u,v)$ and $e^{-1}=(v,u)$. Assume $S$ is an inverse closed subset of permutations of positive integers. We say $G$ is $S$-$k$-colourable if for any mapping $σ: E(G) \to S$ with $σ(x,y) = (σ(y,x))^{-1}$, there is a mapping $f: V(G) \to [k]=\{1,2, \ldots, k\}$ such that for each arc $e=(x,y)$, $σ_e(f(x)) \ne f(y)$. The concept of $S$-$k$-colouring is a common generalization of many colouring concepts, including $k$-colouring, signed $k$-colouring defined by Máčajová…
There are two conjectures concerning planar graph colourings that are strengthenings of the four colour theorem. One concerns signed graph colouring and is proposed by Máčajová, Raspaud and Škoviera. It asserts that every signed planar graph is $4$-colourable. Another concerns list colouring and is proposed by Kündgen and Ramamurthi which asserts that if $L$ is a $2$-list assignment of a planar graph $G$, then there is an $L$-colouring of $G$ such that each colour class induces a bipartite graph. In this note we prove that the first conjecture implies the second one.
A vertex colouring of some graph is called perfect if each vertex of colour $i$ has exactly $a_{ij}$ neighbours of colour $j$. Being perfect imposes several restrictions on the colour incidence matrix $(a_{ij})$. We list several (old and new) necessary conditions for a matrix to be the colour incidence matrix of a perfect colouring. Moreover we show that a certain combination of these conditions is also sufficient. Using this we determine a list of all colour incidence matrices corresponding to perfect colourings of 3-regular, 4-regular and 5-regular graphs with two, three and four colours, re…
Dujmović, Joret, Micek, Morin, Ueckerdt and Wood recently in [Planar graphs have bounded queue-number, Journal of the ACM, Volume 67, Issue 4, Article No.: 22, August 2020] showed some attractive graph product structure theorems for planar graphs. By using the product structure, they proved that planar graphs have bounded queue-number $48$; in [Planar graphs have bounded nonrepetitive chromatic number, Advances in Combinatorics, 5, 11 pp, 2020], the authors proved that planar graphs have bounded nonrepetitive chromatic number $768$. In this paper, still by using some product structure theorem,…
A graph $G$ is called $3$-choice critical if $G$ is not $2$-choosable but any proper subgraph is $2$-choosable. A characterization of $3$-choice critical graphs was given by Voigt in [On list Colourings and Choosability of Graphs, Habilitationsschrift, Tu Ilmenau(1998)]. Voigt conjectured that if $G$ is a bipartite $3$-choice critical graph, then $G$ is $(4m, 2m)$-choosable for every integer $m$. This conjecture was disproved by Meng, Puleo and Zhu in [On (4, 2)-Choosable Graphs, Journal of Graph Theory 85(2):412-428(2017)]. They showed that if $G=Θ_{r,s,t}$ where $r,s,t$ have the same parity …
The Unfriendly Partition Conjecture posits that every countable graph admits a 2-colouring in which for each vertex there are at least as many bichromatic edges containing that vertex as monochromatic ones. This is not known in general, but it is known that a 3-colouring with this property always exists. Anholcer, Bosek and Grytczuk recently gave a list-colouring version of this conjecture, and proved that such a colouring exists for lists of size 4. We improve their result to lists of size 3; the proof extends to directed acyclic graphs. We also discuss some generalisations.
The planar graph product structure theorem of Dujmović, Joret, Micek, Morin, Ueckerdt, and Wood [J. ACM 2020] states that every planar graph is a subgraph of the strong product of a graph with bounded treewidth and a path. This result has been the key tool to resolve important open problems regarding queue layouts, nonrepetitive colourings, centered colourings, and adjacency labelling schemes. In this paper, we extend this line of research by utilizing shallow minors to prove analogous product structure theorems for several beyond planar graph classes. The key observation that drives our work …
Let $k \geq 1$ be an integer. The reconfiguration graph $R_k(G)$ of the $k$-colourings of a graph~$G$ has as vertex set the set of all possible $k$-colourings of $G$ and two colourings are adjacent if they differ on exactly one vertex. A conjecture of Cereceda from 2007 asserts that for every integer $\ell \geq k + 2$ and $k$-degenerate graph $G$ on $n$ vertices, $R_{\ell}(G)$ has diameter $O(n^2)$. The conjecture has been verified only when $\ell \geq 2k + 1$. We give a simple proof that if $G$ is a planar graph on $n$ vertices, then $R_{10}(G)$ has diameter at most $n^2$. Since planar graphs…
Let ${\mathcal D}_d$ be the class of $d$-degenerate graphs and let $L$ be a list assignment for a graph $G$. A colouring of $G$ such that every vertex receives a colour from its list and the subgraph induced by vertices coloured with one color is a $d$-degenerate graph is called the $(L,{\mathcal D}_d)$-colouring of $G$. For a $k$-uniform list assignment $L$ and $d\in\mathbb{N}_0$, a graph $G$ is equitably $(L,{\mathcal D}_d)$-colorable if there is an $(L,{\mathcal D}_d)$-colouring of $G$ such that the size of any colour class does not exceed $\left\lceil|V(G)|/k\right\rceil$. An equitable $(L…
Král' and Sgall (2005) introduced a refinement of list colouring where every colour list must be subset to one predetermined palette of colours. We call this $(k,\ell)$-choosability when the palette is of size at most $\ell$ and the lists must be of size at least $k$. They showed that, for any integer $k\ge 2$, there is an integer $C=C(k,2k-1)$, satisfying $C = O(16^{k}\ln k)$ as $k\to \infty$, such that, if a graph is $(k,2k-1)$-choosable, then it is $C$-choosable, and asked if $C$ is required to be exponential in $k$. We demonstrate it must satisfy $C = Ω(4^k/\sqrt{k})$. For an integer $\ell…
A vertex colouring of a graph is \emph{nonrepetitive} if there is no path for which the first half of the path is assigned the same sequence of colours as the second half. The \emph{nonrepetitive chromatic number} of a graph $G$ is the minimum integer $k$ such that $G$ has a nonrepetitive $k$-colouring. Whether planar graphs have bounded nonrepetitive chromatic number is one of the most important open problems in the field. Despite this, the best known upper bound is $O(\sqrt{n})$ for $n$-vertex planar graphs. We prove a $O(\log n)$ upper bound.
The Four Colour Theorem asserts that the vertices of every plane graph can be properly coloured with four colors. Fabrici and Göring conjectured the following stronger statement to also hold: the vertices of every plane graph can be properly coloured with the numbers 1,...,4 in such a way that every face contains a unique vertex coloured with the maximal color appearing on that face. They proved that every plane graph has such a colouring with the numbers 1,...,6. We prove that every plane graph has such a colouring with the numbers 1,...,5 and we also prove the list variant of the statement f…
We prove that graphs excluding a fixed immersion have bounded nonrepetitive chromatic number. More generally, we prove that if $H$ is a fixed planar graph that has a planar embedding with all the vertices with degree at least 4 on a single face, then graphs excluding $H$ as a topological minor have bounded nonrepetitive chromatic number. This is the largest class of graphs known to have bounded nonrepetitive chromatic number.
Let $K_{n,n}$ be the complete bipartite graph with $n$ vertices in each side. For each vertex draw uniformly at random a list of size $k$ from a base set $S$ of size $s=s(n)$. In this paper we estimate the asymptotic probability of the existence of a proper colouring from the random lists for all fixed values of $k$ and growing $n$. We show that this property exhibits a sharp threshold for $k\geq 2$ and the location of the threshold is precisely $s(n)=2n$ for $k=2$, and approximately $s(n)=\frac{n}{2^{k-1}\ln 2}$ for $k\geq 3$.
Let $χ_l(G)$ denote the list chromatic number of the $r$-uniform hypergraph~$G$. Extending a result of Alon for graphs, Saxton and the second author used the method of containers to prove that, if $G$ is simple and $d$-regular, then $χ_l(G)\ge (1/(r-1)+o(1))\log_r d$. To see how close this inequality is to best possible, we examine $χ_l(G)$ when $G$ is a random $r$-partite hypergraph with $n$ vertices in each class. The value when $r=2$ was determined by Alon and Krivelevich, here we show that $χ_l(G)= (g(r,α)+o(1))\log_r d$ almost surely, where $d$ is the expected average degree of~$G$ and $α…
A fundamental connection between list vertex colourings of graphs and Property B (also known as hypergraph 2-colourability) was already known to Erdős, Rubin and Taylor. In this article, we draw similar connections for improper list colourings. This extends results of Kostochka, Alon, and Král' and Sgall for, respectively, multipartite graphs, graphs of large minimum degree, and list assignments with bounded list union.
It was conjectured by the third author in about 1973 that every $d$-regular planar graph (possibly with parallel edges) can be $d$-edge-coloured, provided that for every odd set $X$ of vertices, there are at least $d$ edges between $X$ and its complement. For $d = 3$ this is the four-colour theorem, and the conjecture has been proved for all $d\le 7$, by various authors. Here we prove it for $d = 8$.
Let $C_n^k$ be the $k$-th power of a cycle on $n$ vertices (i.e. the vertices of $C_n^k$ are those of the $n$-cycle, and two vertices are connected by an edge if their distance along the cycle is at most $k$). For each vertex draw uniformly at random a subset of size $c$ from a base set $S$ of size $s=s(n)$. In this paper we solve the problem of determining the asymptotic probability of the existence of a proper colouring from the lists for all fixed values of $c,k$, and growing $n$.
The odd chromatic number and the conflict-free chromatic number are new graph parameters introduced by Petruševski and Škrekovski [2021] and Fabrici, Lužar, Rindošová and Soták [2022] respectively. In this note, we show that graphs with bounded $2$-strong colouring number have bounded odd chromatic number and bounded conflict-free chromatic number. This implies that graph classes with bounded expansion have bounded odd chromatic number and bounded conflict-free chromatic number. Moreover, it follows by known results that the odd chromatic number and the conflict-free chromatic number of $k$-pl…
An adjacent vertex distinguishing edge colouring of a graph $G$ without isolated edges is its proper edge colouring such that no pair of adjacent vertices meets the same set of colours in $G$. We show that such colouring can be chosen from any set of lists associated to the edges of $G$ as long as the size of every list is at least $Δ+CΔ^{\frac{1}{2}}(\logΔ)^4$, where $Δ$ is the maximum degree of $G$ and $C$ is a constant. The proof is probabilistic. The same is true in the environment of total colourings.
We examine the computational complexity of approximately counting the list H-colourings of a graph. We discover a natural graph-theoretic trichotomy based on the structure of the graph H. If H is an irreflexive bipartite graph or a reflexive complete graph then counting list H-colourings is trivially in polynomial time. Otherwise, if H is an irreflexive bipartite permutation graph or a reflexive proper interval graph then approximately counting list H-colourings is equivalent to #BIS, the problem of approximately counting independent sets in a bipartite graph. This is a well-studied problem wh…
We say that a vertex colouring $φ$ of a graph $G$ is nonrepetitive if there is no positive integer $n$ and a path on $2n$ vertices $v_{1}\ldots v_{2n}$ in $G$ such that the associated sequence of colours $φ(v_{1})\ldotsφ(v_{2n})$ satisfy $φ(v_{i})=φ(v_{i+n})$ for all $i=1,2,\dots,n$. The minimum number of colours in a nonrepetitive vertex colouring of $G$ is the Thue chromatic number $π(G)$. For the case of vertex list colourings the Thue choice number $π_{l}(G)$ of $G$ denotes the smallest integer $k$ such that for every list assignment $L:V(G)\rightarrow 2^{\mathbb{N}}$ with minimum list len…
A colouring of a graph $G=(V,E)$ is a function $c: V\rightarrow\{1,2,\ldots \}$ such that $c(u)\neq c(v)$ for every $uv\in E$. A $k$-regular list assignment of $G$ is a function $L$ with domain $V$ such that for every $u\in V$, $L(u)$ is a subset of $\{1, 2, \dots\}$ of size $k$. A colouring $c$ of $G$ respects a $k$-regular list assignment $L$ of $G$ if $c(u)\in L(u)$ for every $u\in V$. A graph $G$ is $k$-choosable if for every $k$-regular list assignment $L$ of $G$, there exists a colouring of $G$ that respects $L$. We may also ask if for a given $k$-regular list assignment $L$ of a given g…
In this paper, the on-line list colouring of binomial random graphs G(n,p) is studied. We show that the on-line choice number of G(n,p) is asymptotically almost surely asymptotic to the chromatic number of G(n,p), provided that the average degree d=p(n-1) tends to infinity faster than (log log n)^1/3(log n)^2n^(2/3). For sparser graphs, we are slightly less successful; we show that if d>(log n)^(2+epsilon) for some epsilon>0, then the on-line choice number is larger than the chromatic number by at most a multiplicative factor of C, where C in [2,4], depending on the range of d. Also, for d=O(1…