We answer positively the question of Albertson asking whether every planar graph can be $5$-list-colored even if it contains precolored vertices, as long as they are sufficiently far apart from each other. In order to prove this claim, we also give bounds on the sizes of graphs critical with respect to 5-list coloring. In particular, if G is a planar graph, H is a connected subgraph of G and L is an assignment of lists of colors to the vertices of G such that |L(v)| >= 5 for every v in V(G)-V(H) and G is not L-colorable, then G contains a subgraph with O(|H|^2) vertices that is not L-colorable.
Let G be a planar triangle-free graph and let C be a cycle in G of length at most 8. We characterize all situations where a 3-coloring of C does not extend to a proper 3-coloring of the whole graph.
Given a triangle-free planar graph G and a 9-cycle C in G, we characterize situations where a 3-coloring of C does not extend to a proper 3-coloring of G. This extends previous results when C is a cycle of length at most 8.
We study 3-coloring properties of triangle-free planar graphs $G$ with two precolored 4-cycles $C_1$ and $C_2$ that are far apart. We prove that either every precoloring of $C_1\cup C_2$ extends to a 3-coloring of $G$, or $G$ contains one of two special substructures which uniquely determine which 3-colorings of $C_1\cup C_2$ extend. As a corollary, we prove that there exists a constant $D>0$ such that if $H$ is a planar triangle-free graph and $S\subseteq V(H)$ consists of vertices at pairwise distances at least $D$, then every precoloring of $S$ extends to a 3-coloring of $H$. This gives a p…
We consider the problem of extending partial edge colorings of cartesian products of graphs. More specifically, we suggest the following Evans-type conjecture: If $G$ is a graph where every precoloring of at most $k$ precolored edges can be extended to a proper $χ'(G)$-edge coloring, then every precoloring of at most $k+1$ edges of $G \square K_2$ is extendable to a proper $(χ'(G) +1)$-edge coloring of $G \square K_2$. In this paper we verify that this conjecture holds for trees, complete and complete bipartite graphs, as well as for graphs with small maximum degree. We also prove versions of …
Let G be a plane graph of girth at least five. We show that if there exists a 3-coloring phi of a cycle C of G that does not extend to a 3-coloring of G, then G has a subgraph H on O(|C|) vertices that also has no 3-coloring extending phi. This is asymptotically best possible and improves a previous bound of Thomassen. In the next paper of the series we will use this result and the attendant theory to prove a generalization to graphs on surfaces with several precolored cycles.
Dvořák, Král' and Thomas gave a description of the structure of triangle-free graphs on surfaces with respect to 3-coloring. Their description however contains two substructures (both related to graphs embedded in plane with two precolored cycles) whose coloring properties are not entirely determined. In this paper, we fill these gaps.
Let $G$ be a graph embedded on a surface $S_\varepsilon$ with Euler genus $\varepsilon > 0$, and let $P\subseteq V(G)$ be a set of vertices mutually at distance at least 4 apart. Suppose all vertices of $G$ have $H(\varepsilon)$-lists and the vertices of $P$ are precolored, where $H(\varepsilon)=\Big\lfloor\frac{7 + \sqrt{24\varepsilon + 1}}{2}\Big\rfloor$ is the Heawood number. We show that the coloring of $P$ extends to a list-coloring of $G$ and that the distance bound of 4 is best possible. Our result provides an answer to an analogous question of Albertson about extending a precoloring of…
For any fixed surface Sigma of genus g, we give an algorithm to decide whether a graph G of girth at least five embedded in Sigma is colorable from an assignment of lists of size three in time O(|V(G)|). Furthermore, we can allow a subgraph (of any size) with at most s components to be precolored, at the expense of increasing the time complexity of the algorithm to O(|V(G)|^{K(g+s)+1}) for some absolute constant K; in both cases, the multiplicative constant hidden in the O-notation depends on g and s. This also enables us to find such a coloring when it exists. The idea of the algorithm can be…
A celebrated result of Thomassen states that not only can every planar graph be colored properly with five colors, but no matter how arbitrary palettes of five colors are assigned to vertices, one can choose a color from the corresponding palette for each vertex so that the resulting coloring is proper. This result is referred to as 5-choosability of planar graphs. Albertson asked whether Thomassen's theorem can be extended by precoloring some vertices which are at a large enough distance apart in a graph. Here, among others, we answer the question in the case when the graph does not contain s…
Let $G$ be a graph embedded in a fixed surface $Σ$ of genus $g$ and let $L=(L(v):v\in V(G))$ be a collection of lists such that either each list has size at least five, or each list has size at least four and $G$ is triangle-free, or each list has size at least three and $G$ has no cycle of length four or less. An $L$-coloring of $G$ is a mapping $ϕ$ with domain $V(G)$ such that $ϕ(v)\in L(v)$ for every $v\in V(G)$ and $ϕ(v)\neϕ(u)$ for every pair of adjacent vertices $u,v\in V(G)$. We prove * if every non-null-homotopic cycle in $G$ has length $Ω(\log g)$, then $G$ has an $L$-coloring, * if $…
Let $G$ be a plane graph with outer cycle $C$ and let $(L(v):v\in V(G))$ be a family of non-empty sets. By an $L$-coloring of $G$ we mean a (proper) coloring $ϕ$ of $G$ such that $ϕ(v)\in L(v)$ for every vertex $v$ of $G$. Thomassen proved that if $v_1,v_2\in V(C)$ are adjacent, $L(v_1)\ne L(v_2)$, $|L(v)|\ge3$ for every $v\in V(C)-\{v_1,v_2\}$ and $|L(v)|\ge5$ for every $v\in V(G)-V(C)$, then $G$ has an $L$-coloring. What happens when $v_1$ and $v_2$ are not adjacent? Then an $L$-coloring need not exist, but in the first paper of this series we have shown that it exists if $|L(v_1)|,|L(v_2)|\…
Thomassen proved that any plane graph of girth 5 is list-colorable from any list assignment such that all vertices have lists of size two or three and the vertices with list of size two are all incident with the outer face and form an independent set. We present a strengthening of this result, relaxing the constraint on the vertices with list of size two. This result is used to bound the size of the 3-list-coloring critical plane graphs with one precolored face.
We settle a problem of Havel by showing that there exists an absolute constant d such that if G is a planar graph in which every two distinct triangles are at distance at least d, then G is 3-colorable. In fact, we prove a more general theorem. Let G be a planar graph, and let H be a set of connected subgraphs of G, each of bounded size, such that every two distinct members of H are at least a specified distance apart and all triangles of G are contained in \bigcup{H}. We give a sufficient condition for the existence of a 3-coloring phi of G such that for every B\in H, the restriction of phi t…
Let $k$ be an positive integer. For any two integers $i$ and $j$ in $\{0,1,\dots,k-1\}$, let $|i-j|_k=\min\{|i-j|,k-|i-j|\}$ be the circular distance between $i$ and $j$. Let $t$ be a nonnegative integer. Suppose $f$ is a mapping from $V(G)$ to $\{0,1,\dots,k-1\}$. If adjacent vertices receive different integers, and for each vertex $u$ of $G$, the number of neighbors $v$ of $u$ with $|f(u)-f(v)|_k=1$ is at most $t$, then $f$ is called a $t$-relaxed 2-distant circular $k$-coloring, or simply a $(\frac{k}{2},t)^*$-coloring of $G$. If $G$ has a $(\frac{k}{2},t)^*$-coloring, then $G$ is called $(…
We consider the following list coloring with separation problem of graphs: Given a graph $G$ and integers $a,b$, find the largest integer $c$ such that for any list assignment $L$ of $G$ with $|L(v)|\le a$ for any vertex $v$ and $|L(u)\cap L(v)|\le c$ for any edge $uv$ of $G$, there exists an assignment $φ$ of sets of integers to the vertices of $G$ such that $φ(u)\subset L(u)$ and $|φ(v)|=b$ for any vertex $v$ and $φ(u)\cap φ(v)=\emptyset$ for any edge $uv$. Such a value of $c$ is called the separation number of $(G,a,b)$. We also study the variant called the free-separation number which is d…
Aksenov proved that in a planar graph G with at most one triangle, every precoloring of a 4-cycle can be extended to a 3-coloring of G. We give an exact characterization of planar graphs with two triangles in that some precoloring of a 4-cycle does not extend. We apply this characterization to solve the precoloring extension problem from two 4-cycles in a triangle-free planar graph in the case that the precolored 4-cycles are separated by many disjoint 4-cycles. The latter result is used in followup papers to give detailed information about the structure of 4-critical triangle-free graphs embe…
There are many variations on partition functions for graph homomorphisms or colorings. The case considered here is a counting or hard constraint problem in which the range or color graph carries a free and vertex transitive Abelian group action so that the colors are identified with the elements of this group. A Fourier transform is used to obtain an expansion for the numbers of colorings with terms indexed by isthmus free subgraphs of the domain. The terms are products of a polynomial in the edge density a of the color graph and the number of colorings of the indexing subgraph of the domain i…
