In 1880, P. G. Tait showed that the four colour theorem is equivalent to the assertion that every 3-regular planar graph without cut-edges is 3-edge-colourable, and in 1891, J. Petersen proved that every 3-regular graph with at most two cut-edges has a 1-factor. In this paper, we introduce the notion of collapsing all edges of a 1-factor of a 3-regular planar graph, thereby obtaining what we call a vertex-oriented 4-regular planar graph. We also introduce the notion of o-colouring a vertex-oriented 4-regular planar graph, and we prove that the four colour theorem is equivalent to the assertion that every vertex-oriented 4-regular planar graph without nontransversally oriented cut-vertex (VOGWOC in short) is 3-o-colourable. This work proposes an alternative avenue of investigation in the search to find a more conceptual proof of the four colour theorem, and we are able to prove that every VOGWOC is o-colourable (although we have not yet been able to prove 3-o-colourability).
Each of several possible definitions of local injectivity for a homomorphism of an oriented graph $G$ to an oriented graph $H$ leads to an injective oriented colouring problem. For each case in which such a problem is solvable in polynomial time, we identify a set $\mathcal{F}$ of oriented graphs such that an oriented graph $G$ has an injective oriented colouring with the given number of colours if and only if there is no $F \in \mathcal{F}$ for which there is a locally-injective homomorphism of $F$ to $G$.
Several possible definitions of local injectivity for a homomorphism of an oriented graph $G$ to an oriented graph $H$ are considered. In each case, we determine the complexity of deciding whether there exists such a homomorphism when $G$ is given and $H$ is a fixed tournament on three or fewer vertices. Each possible definition leads to a locally-injective oriented colouring problem. A dichotomy theorem is proved in each case.
We show that any orientation of a graph with maximum degree three has an oriented 9-colouring, and that any orientation of a graph with maximum degree four has an oriented 69-colouring. These results improve the best known upper bounds of 11 and 80, respectively.
Let $G$ be a graph with $n$ vertices, $m$ edges, average degree $δ$, and maximum degree $Δ$. The "oriented chromatic number" of $G$ is the maximum, taken over all orientations of $G$, of the minimum number of colours in a proper vertex colouring such that between every pair of colour classes all edges have the same orientation. We investigate the oriented chromatic number of graphs, such as the hypercube, for which $δ\geq\log n$. We prove that every such graph has oriented chromatic number at least $Ω(\sqrt{n})$. In the case that $δ\geq(2+ε)\log n$, this lower bound is improved to $Ω(\sqrt{m})…
In this note we show every orientation of a connected cubic graph admits an oriented 8-colouring. This lowers the best-known upper bound for the chromatic number of the family of orientations of connected cubic graphs. We further show that every such oriented graph admits a 2-dipath 7-colouring. These results imply that either the chromatic number for the family of oriented connected cubic graphs equals the 2-dipath chromatic number or the long-standing conjecture of Sopena [Journal of Graph Theory 25:191-205 1997] regarding the chromatic number of orientations of connected cubic graphs is fal…
In this paper, we study Ramsey-type problems for directed graphs. We first consider the $k$-colour oriented Ramsey number of $H$, denoted by $\overrightarrow{R}(H,k)$, which is the least $n$ for which every $k$-edge-coloured tournament on $n$ vertices contains a monochromatic copy of $H$. We prove that $ \overrightarrow{R}(T,k) \le c_k|T|^k$ for any oriented tree $T$. This is a generalisation of a similar result for directed paths by Chvátal and by Gyárfás and Lehel, and answers a question of Yuster. In general, it is tight up to a constant factor. We also consider the $k$-colour directed Rams…
An oriented graph is a directed graph with no bi-directed edges, i.e. if $xy$ is an edge then $yx$ is not an edge. The oriented size Ramsey number of an oriented graph $H$, denoted by $r(H)$, is the minimum $m$ for which there exists an oriented graph $G$ with $m$ edges, such that every $2$-colouring of $G$ contains a monochromatic copy of $H$. In this paper we prove that the oriented size Ramsey number of the directed paths on $n$ vertices satisfies $r(P_n) = Ω(n^2 \log n)$. This improves a lower bound by Ben-Eliezer, Krivelevich and Sudakov. It also matches an upper bound by Bucić and the au…
Neumann-Lara and Škrekovski conjectured that every planar digraph is $2$-colourable. We show that this conjecture is equivalent to the more general statement that all oriented $K_5$-minor-free graphs are $2$-colourable.
An edge-coloured graph $G$ is {\it rainbow connected} if any two vertices are connected by a path whose edges have distinct colours. This concept was introduced by Chartrand et al. in \cite{ch01}, and it was extended to oriented graphs by Dorbec et al. in \cite{DI}. In this paper we present some results regarding this extention, mostly for the case of circulant digraphs.
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.
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…
Given an edge colouring of a graph with a set of $m$ colours, we say that the graph is (exactly) $m$-coloured if each of the colours is used. We consider edge colourings of the complete graph on $\mathbb{N}$ with infinitely many colours and show that either one can find an $m$-coloured complete subgraph for every natural number $m$ or there exists an infinite subset $X \subset \mathbb{N}$ coloured in one of two canonical ways: either the colouring is injective on $X$ or there exists a distinguished vertex $v$ in $X$ such that $X \setminus \lbrace v \rbrace$ is $1$-coloured and each edge betwee…
Several graph properties are characterized as the class of graphs that admit an orientation avoiding finitely many oriented structures. For instance, if $F_k$ is the set of homomorphic images of the directed path on $k+1$ vertices, then a graph is $k$-colourable if and only if it admits an orientation with no induced oriented graph in $F_k$. There is a fundamental question underlying this kind of characterizations: given a graph property, $\mathcal{P}$, is there a finite set of oriented graphs, $F$, such that a graph belongs to $\mathcal{P}$ if and only if it admits an orientation with no indu…
Let $G$ be an edge-coloured graph. The minimum colour degree $ δ^c(G) $ of $G$ is the largest integer $k$ such that, for every vertex $v$, there are at least $k$ distinct colours on edges incident to $v$. We say that $G$ is properly coloured if no two adjacent edges have the same colour. In this paper, we show that every edge-coloured graph $G$ with $ δ^c(G) \ge 2|G| / 3 $ contains a properly coloured $2$-factor. Furthermore, we show that for any $ \varepsilon > 0 $ there exists an integer $ n_0 $ such that every edge-coloured graph $G$ with $|G| = n \ge n_0 $ and $ δ^c(G) \ge ( 2/3 + \varepsi…
In this work we consider arc criticality in colourings of oriented graphs. We study deeply critical oriented graphs, those graphs for which the removal of any arc results in a decrease of the oriented chromatic number by $2$. We prove the existence of deeply critical oriented cliques of every odd order $n\geq 9$, closing an open question posed by Borodin et al. (Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series B, 81(1):150-155, 2001). Additionally, we prove the non-existence of deeply critical oriented cliques among the family of circulant oriented cliques of even order.
The oriented chromatic polynomial of a oriented graph outputs the number of oriented $k$-colourings for any input $k$. We fully classify those oriented graphs for which the oriented graph has the same chromatic polynomial as the underlying simple graph, closing an open problem posed by Sopena. We find that such oriented graphs can be both identified and constructed in polynomial time as they are exactly the family of quasi-transitive oriented co-interval graphs. We study the analytic properties of this polynomial and show that there exist oriented graphs which have chromatic polynomials have r…
In RSST, they "replace the mammoth hand-checking of unavoidability that A&H required, by another mammoth hand-checkable proof " (page 18). Here, the proof of unavoidability is accomplished in a lengthy structured hand-checkable proof whose entirety is presented in this document.
Gallai's colouring theorem states that if the edges of a complete graph are 3-coloured, with each colour class forming a connected (spanning) subgraph, then there is a triangle that has all 3 colours. What happens for more colours: if we $k$-colour the edges of the complete graph, with each colour class connected, how many of the $\binom{k}{3}$ triples of colours must appear as triangles? In this note we show that the `obvious' conjecture, namely that there are always at least $\binom{k-1}{2}$ triples, is not correct. We determine the minimum asymptotically. This answers a question of Johnson.…
We investigate a class of 2-edge coloured bipartite graphs known as alternating signed bipartite graphs (ASBGs) that encode the information in alternating sign matrices. The central question is when a given bipartite graph admits an ASBG-colouring; a 2-edge colouring such that the resulting graph is an ASBG. We introduce the concept of a difference-1 colouring, a relaxation of the concept of an ASBG-colouring, and present a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for when a graph admits a difference-1 colouring. The relationship between distinct difference-1 colourings of a particular graph…
We establish two versions of Vizing's theorem for Borel multi-graphs whose vertex degrees and edge multiplicities are uniformly bounded by respectively $Δ$ and $π$. The ``approximate'' version states that, for any Borel probability measure on the edge set and any $ε>0$, we can properly colour all but $ε$-fraction of edges with $Δ+π$ colours in a Borel way. The ``measurable'' version, which is our main result, states that if, additionally, the measure is invariant, then there is a measurable proper edge colouring of the whole edge set with at most $Δ+π$ colours.
Duffy et al. [C. Duffy, G. MacGillivray, and É. Sopena, Oriented colourings of graphs with maximum degree three and four, Discrete Mathematics, 342(4), p. 959--974, 2019] recently considered the oriented chromatic number of connected oriented graphs with maximum degree $3$ and $4$, proving it is at most $9$ and $69$, respectively. In this paper, we improve these results by showing that the oriented chromatic number of non-necessarily connected oriented graphs with maximum degree $3$ (resp. $4$) is at most $9$ (resp. $26$). The bound of $26$ actually follows from a general result which determin…
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…
Let $G$ be a graph whose edges are each assigned one of the $m$-colours $1, 2, \ldots, m$, and let $Γ$ be a subgroup of $S_m$. The operation of switching at a vertex $x$ with respect $π\in Γ$ permutes the colours of the edges incident with $x$ according to $π$. There is a well-developed theory of switching when $Γ$ is Abelian. Much less is known for non-Abelian groups. In this paper we consider switching with respect to non-Abelian groups including symmetric, alternating and dihedral groups. We first consider the question of whether there is a sequence of switches using elements of $Γ$ that tr…
A coloured graph is k-ultrahomogeneous if every isomorphism between two induced subgraphs of order at most k extends to an automorphism. A coloured graph is t-tuple regular if the number of vertices adjacent to every vertex in a set S of order at most k depends only on the isomorphism type of the subgraph induced by S. We classify the finite vertex-coloured k-ultrahomogeneous graphs and the finite vertex-coloured l-tuple regular graphs for k at least 4 and l at least 5, respectively. Our theorem in particular classifies finite vertex-coloured ultrahomogeneous graphs, where ultrahomogeneous mea…
Given a graph $G=(V,E)$ whose vertices have been properly coloured, we say that a path in $G$ is "colourful" if no two vertices in the path have the same colour. It is a corollary of the Gallai-Roy-Vitaver Theorem that every properly coloured graph contains a colourful path on $χ(G)$ vertices. We explore a conjecture that states that every properly coloured triangle-free graph $G$ contains an induced colourful path on $χ(G)$ vertices and prove its correctness when the girth of $G$ is at least $χ(G)$. Recent work on this conjecture by Gyárfás and Sárközy, and Scott and Seymour has shown the exi…
A map is a 2-cell decomposition of an orientable closed surface. A dessin is a bipartite map with a fixed colouring of vertices. A dessin is regular if its group of colour- and orientation-preserving automorphisms acts transitively on the edges, and a regular dessin is symmetric if it admits an additional external symmetry transposing the vertex colours. Regular dessins with nilpotent automorphism groups are investigated. We show that each such dessin is a parallel product of regular dessins whose automorphism groups are the Sylow subgroups. Regular and symmetric dessins with abelian automorph…
We prove that, with high probability, in every $2$-edge-colouring of the random tournament on $n$ vertices there is a monochromatic copy of every oriented tree of order $O (n / \sqrt{\log n})$. This generalises a result of the first, third and forth authors who proved the same statement for paths, and is tight up to a constant factor.
Hadwiger's Conjecture asserts that every $K_t$-minor-free graph has a proper $(t-1)$-colouring. We relax the conclusion in Hadwiger's Conjecture via improper colourings. We prove that every $K_t$-minor-free graph is $(2t-2)$-colourable with monochromatic components of order at most $\lceil{\frac12(t-2)}\rceil$. This result has no more colours and much smaller monochromatic components than all previous results in this direction. We then prove that every $K_t$-minor-free graph is $(t-1)$-colourable with monochromatic degree at most $t-2$. This is the best known degree bound for such a result. Bo…
Archdeacon (1987) proved that graphs embeddable on a fixed surface can be $3$-coloured so that each colour class induces a subgraph of bounded maximum degree. Edwards, Kang, Kim, Oum and Seymour (2015) proved that graphs with no $K_{t+1}$-minor can be $t$-coloured so that each colour class induces a subgraph of bounded maximum degree. We prove a common generalisation of these theorems with a weaker assumption about excluded subgraphs. This result leads to new defective colouring results for several graph classes, including graphs with linear crossing number, graphs with given thickness (with r…
Fix a palette $\mathcal K$ of $Δ+1$ colours, a graph with maximum degree $Δ$, and a subset $M$ of the edge set with minimum distance between edges at least $9$. If the edges of $M$ are arbitrarily precoloured from $\mathcal K$, then there is guaranteed to be a proper edge-colouring using only colours from $\mathcal K$ that extends the precolouring on $M$ to the entire graph. This result is a first general precolouring extension form of Vizing's theorem, and it proves a conjecture of Albertson and Moore under a slightly stronger distance requirement. We also show that the condition on the dista…
We call a multigraph $(k,d)$-edge colourable if its edge set can be partitioned into $k$ subgraphs of maximum degree at most $d$ and denote as $χ'_{d}(G)$ the minimum $k$ such that $G$ is $(k,d)$-edge colourable. We prove that for every integer $d$, every multigraph $G$ with maximum degree $Δ$ is $(\lceil \fracΔ{d} \rceil, d)$-edge colourable if $d$ is even and $(\lceil \frac{3Δ- 1}{3d - 1} \rceil, d)$-edge colourable if $d$ is odd and these bounds are tight. We also prove that for every simple graph $G$, $χ'_{d}(G) \in \{ \lceil \fracΔ{d} \rceil, \lceil \frac{Δ+1}{d} \rceil \}$ and characteri…
We interpret the number of good four-colourings of the faces of a trivalent, spherical polyhedron as the 2-holonomy of the 2-connection of a fibered category, phi, modeled on Rep(sl(2)) and defined over the dual triangulation, T. We also build an sl(2)-bundle with connection over T, that is a global, equivariant section of phi, and we prove that the four-colour theorem is equivalent to the fact that the connection of this sl(2)-bundle vanishes nowhere. This interpretation may be a first step toward a cohomological proof of the four-colour theorem.
University College London（伦敦大学学院）；Simon Fraser University（西蒙菲莎大学）；University of Ljubljana（卢布尔雅那大学）；McGill University（麦吉尔大学）；ETH Zürich（苏黎世联邦理工学院）；University of Oxford（牛津大学）；Monash University（蒙纳士大学）
An $(m,n)$-mixed graph generalizes the notions of oriented graphs and edge-coloured graphs to a graph object with $m$ arc types and $n$ edge types. A simple colouring of such a graph is a non-trivial homomorphism to a reflexive target. We find that simple chromatic number of complete $(m,n)$-mixed graphs can be found in polynomial time. For planar graphs and $k$-trees ($k \geq 3$) we find that allowing the target to be reflexive does not lower the chromatic number of the respective family of $(m,n)$-mixed graphs. This implies that the search for universal targets for such families may be restr…
We present a edge-coloured analogue of the duality theorem for transitive tournaments and directed paths. Given a edge-coloured path $P$ whose edges alternate blue and red, we construct a edge-coloured graph $D$ so that for any edge-coloured graph $G$ $$ P \to G \Leftrightarrow G \not\to D. $$ The duals are simple to construct, in particular $|V(D)|=|V(P)|-1$.
Colour symmetries with ten colours are presented for different tilings. In many cases, the existence of these colourings were predicted by group theoretical methods. Only in a few cases explicit constructions were known, sometimes using combination of two-colour and five-colour symmetries. Here we present explicit constructions of several of the predicted colourings for the first time, and discuss them in contrast to already known colourings with ten colours.
A vertex colouring of a graph $G$ is "nonrepetitive" if $G$ contains no path for which the first half of the path is assigned the same sequence of colours as the second half. Thue's famous theorem says that every path is nonrepetitively 3-colourable. This paper surveys results about nonrepetitive colourings of graphs. The goal is to give a unified and comprehensive presentation of the major results and proof methods, as well as to highlight numerous open problems.
A first step in investigating colour symmetries of periodic and nonperiodic patterns is determining the number of colours which allow perfect colourings of the pattern under consideration. A perfect colouring is one where each symmetry of the uncoloured pattern induces a global permutation of the colours. Two cases are distinguished: Either perfect colourings with respect to all symmetries, or with respect to orientation preserving symmetries only (no reflections). For the important class of colourings of regular tilings (and some Laves tilings) of the Euclidean or hyperbolic plane, this mainl…
In the homomorphism order of digraphs, a duality pair is an ordered pair of digraphs $(G,H)$ such that for any digraph, $D$, $G\to D$ if and only if $D\not\to H$. The directed path on $k+1$ vertices together with the transitive tournament on $k$ vertices is a classic example of a duality pair. This relation between paths and tournaments implies that a graph is $k$-colourable if and only if it admits an orientation with no directed path on more than $k$-vertices. In this work, for every undirected cycle $C$ we find an orientation $C_D$ and an oriented path $P_C$, such that $(P_C,C_D)$ is a dual…
