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 ETH fails, there is no universal constant $θ$ such that $q$-Coloring parameterized by vertex cover can be solved in time $\mathcal{O}^*(θ^k)$ for all fixed $q$. We apply a method due to Jansen and Kratsch [Inform. & Comput. 2013] to prove that there are $\mathcal{O}^*((q - \varepsilon)^k)$ time algorithms where $k$ is the vertex deletion distance to several graph classes $\mathcal{F}$ for which $q$-Coloring is known to be solvable in polynomial time. We generalize earlier ad-hoc results by showing that if $\mathcal{F}$ is a class of graphs whose $(q+1)$-colorable members have bounded treedepth, then there exists some $\varepsilon > 0$ such that $q$-Coloring can be solved in time $\mathcal{O}^*((q-\varepsilon)^k)$ when parameterized by the size of a given modulator to $\mathcal{F}$. In contrast, we prove that if $\mathcal{F}$ is the class of paths - some of the simplest graphs of unbounded treedepth - then no such algorithm can exist unless SETH fails.
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.
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 …
One way to state the Load Coloring Problem (LCP) is as follows. Let $G=(V,E)$ be graph and let $f:V\rightarrow \{{\rm red}, {\rm blue}\}$ be a 2-coloring. An edge $e\in E$ is called red (blue) if both end-vertices of $e$ are red (blue). For a 2-coloring $f$, let $r'_f$ and $b'_f$ be the number of red and blue edges and let $μ_f(G)=\min\{r'_f,b'_f\}$. Let $μ(G)$ be the maximum of $μ_f(G)$ over all 2-colorings. We introduce the parameterized problem $k$-LCP of deciding whether $μ(G)\ge k$, where $k$ is the parameter. We prove that this problem admits a kernel with at most $7k$. Ahuja et al. (200…
In this paper, we study several coloring problems on graphs from the viewpoint of parameterized complexity. We show that Precoloring Extension is fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) parameterized by distance to clique and Equitable Coloring is FPT parameterized by the distance to threshold graphs. We also study the List k-Coloring and show that the problem is NP-complete on split graphs and it is FPT parameterized by solution size on split graphs.
Golovach, Paulusma and Song (Inf. Comput. 2014) asked to determine the parameterized complexity of the following problems parameterized by $k$: (1) Given a graph $G$, a clique modulator $D$ (a clique modulator is a set of vertices, whose removal results in a clique) of size $k$ for $G$, and a list $L(v)$ of colors for every $v\in V(G)$, decide whether $G$ has a proper list coloring; (2) Given a graph $G$, a clique modulator $D$ of size $k$ for $G$, and a pre-coloring $λ_P: X \rightarrow Q$ for $X \subseteq V(G),$ decide whether $λ_P$ can be extended to a proper coloring of $G$ using only color…
In this paper, we study the conflict-free coloring of graphs induced by neighborhoods. A coloring of a graph is conflict-free if every vertex has a uniquely colored vertex in its neighborhood. The conflict-free coloring problem is to color the vertices of a graph using the minimum number of colors such that the coloring is conflict-free. We consider both closed neighborhoods, where the neighborhood of a vertex includes itself, and open neighborhoods, where a vertex does not included in its neighborhood. We study the parameterized complexity of conflict-free closed neighborhood coloring and con…
We study the weighted improper coloring problem, a generalization of defective coloring. We present some hardness results and in particular we show that weighted improper coloring is not fixed-parameter tractable when parameterized by pathwidth. We generalize bounds for defective coloring to weighted improper coloring and give a bound for weighted improper coloring in terms of the sum of edge weights. Finally we give fixed-parameter algorithms for weighted improper coloring both when parameterized by treewidth and maximum degree and when parameterized by treewidth and precision of edge weights…
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 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…
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…
We provide a polynomial-time algorithm for b-Coloring on graphs of constant clique-width. This unifies and extends nearly all previously known polynomial time results on graph classes, and answers open questions posed by Campos and Silva [Algorithmica, 2018] and Bonomo et al. [Graphs Combin., 2009]. This constitutes the first result concerning structural parameterizations of this problem. We show that the problem is FPT when parameterized by the vertex cover number on general graphs, and on chordal graphs when parameterized by the number of colors. Additionally, we observe that our algorithm f…
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）
Consider a graph $G = (V,E)$ and a coloring $c$ of vertices with colors from $[\ell]$. A vertex $v$ is said to be happy with respect to $c$ if $c(v) = c(u)$ for all neighbors $u$ of $v$. Further, an edge $(u,v)$ is happy if $c(u) = c(v)$. Given a partial coloring $c$ of $V$, the Maximum Happy Vertex (Edge) problem asks for a total coloring of $V$ extending $c$ to all vertices of $V$ that maximises the number of happy vertices (edges). Both problems are known to be NP-hard in general even when $\ell = 3$, and is polynomially solvable when $\ell = 2$. In [IWOCA 2016] it was shown that both probl…
An $n$-vertex graph is equitably $k$-colorable if there is a proper coloring of its vertices such that each color is used either $\left\lfloor n/k \right\rfloor$ or $\left\lceil n/k \right\rceil$ times. While classic Vertex Coloring is fixed parameter tractable under well established parameters such as pathwidth and feedback vertex set, Equitable Coloring is $\mathsf{W}[1]$-$\mathsf{hard}$. We present an extensive study of structural parameterizations of Equitable Coloring, tackling both tractability and kernelization questions. We begin by showing that the problem is fixed parameter tractable…
We investigate the parameterized complexity of the following edge coloring problem motivated by the problem of channel assignment in wireless networks. For an integer q>1 and a graph G, the goal is to find a coloring of the edges of G with the maximum number of colors such that every vertex of the graph sees at most q colors. This problem is NP-hard for q>1, and has been well-studied from the point of view of approximation. Our main focus is the case when q=2, which is already theoretically intricate and practically relevant. We show fixed-parameter tractable algorithms for both the standard a…
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…
Let $G$ be a graph such that each vertex has its list of available colors, and assume that each list is a subset of the common set consisting of $k$ colors. For two given list colorings of $G$, we study the problem of transforming one into the other by changing only one vertex color assignment at a time, while at all times maintaining a list coloring. This problem is known to be PSPACE-complete even for bounded bandwidth graphs and a fixed constant $k$. In this paper, we study the fixed-parameter tractability of the problem when parameterized by several graph parameters. We first give a fixed-…
Computing the smallest number $q$ such that the vertices of a given graph can be properly $q$-colored is one of the oldest and most fundamental problems in combinatorial optimization. The $q$-Coloring problem has been studied intensively using the framework of parameterized algorithmics, resulting in a very good understanding of the best-possible algorithms for several parameterizations based on the structure of the graph. While there is an abundance of work for parameterizations based on decompositions of the graph by vertex separators, almost nothing is known about parameterizations based on…
A Star Coloring of a graph G is a proper vertex coloring such that every path on four vertices uses at least three distinct colors. The minimum number of colors required for such a star coloring of G is called star chromatic number, denoted by χ_s(G). Given a graph G and a positive integer k, the STAR COLORING PROBLEM asks whether $G$ has a star coloring using at most k colors. This problem is NP-complete even on restricted graph classes such as bipartite graphs. In this paper, we initiate a study of STAR COLORING from the parameterized complexity perspective. We show that STAR COLORING is fix…
The theory of kernelization can be used to rigorously analyze data reduction for graph coloring problems. Here, the aim is to reduce a q-Coloring input to an equivalent but smaller input whose size is provably bounded in terms of structural properties, such as the size of a minimum vertex cover. In this paper we settle two open problems about data reduction for q-Coloring. First, we obtain a kernel of bitsize $O(k^{q-1}\log{k})$ for q-Coloring parameterized by Vertex Cover, for any q >= 3. This size bound is optimal up to $k^{o(1)}$ factors assuming NP is not a subset of coNP/poly, and improve…
An acyclic r-coloring of a directed graph G=(V,E) is a partition of the vertex set V into r acyclic sets. The dichromatic number of a directed graph G is the smallest r such that G allows an acyclic r-coloring. For symmetric digraphs the dichromatic number equals the well-known chromatic number of the underlying undirected graph. This allows us to carry over the W[1]-hardness and lower bounds for running times of the chromatic number problem parameterized by clique-width to the dichromatic number problem parameterized by directed clique-width. We introduce the first polynomial-time algorithm f…
Let $c, k$ be two positive integers and let $G=(V,E)$ be a graph. The $(c,k)$-Load Coloring Problem (denoted $(c,k)$-LCP) asks whether there is a $c$-coloring $φ: V \rightarrow [c]$ such that for every $i \in [c]$, there are at least $k$ edges with both endvertices colored $i$. Gutin and Jones (IPL 2014) studied this problem with $c=2$. They showed $(2,k)$-LCP to be fixed parameter tractable (FPT) with parameter $k$ by obtaining a kernel with at most $7k$ vertices. In this paper, we extend the study to any fixed $c$ by giving both a linear-vertex and a linear-edge kernel. In the particular cas…
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…
The Rainbow k-Coloring problem asks whether the edges of a given graph can be colored in $k$ colors so that every pair of vertices is connected by a rainbow path, i.e., a path with all edges of different colors. Our main result states that for any $k\ge 2$, there is no algorithm for Rainbow k-Coloring running in time $2^{o(n^{3/2})}$, unless ETH fails. Motivated by this negative result we consider two parameterized variants of the problem. In Subset Rainbow k-Coloring problem, introduced by Chakraborty et al. [STACS 2009, J. Comb. Opt. 2009], we are additionally given a set $S$ of pairs of ver…
Many hard graph problems can be solved efficiently when restricted to graphs of bounded treewidth, and more generally to graphs of bounded clique-width. But there is a price to be paid for this generality, exemplified by the four problems MaxCut, Graph Coloring, Hamiltonian Cycle and Edge Dominating Set that are all FPT parameterized by treewidth but none of which can be FPT parameterized by clique-width unless FPT = W[1], as shown by Fomin et al [7, 8]. We therefore seek a structural graph parameter that shares some of the generality of clique-width without paying this price. Based on splits,…
We introduce a variant of the graph coloring problem, which we denote as {\sc Budgeted Coloring Problem} (\bcp). Given a graph $G$, an integer $c$ and an ordered list of integers $\{b_1, b_2, \ldots, b_c\}$, \bcp asks whether there exists a proper coloring of $G$ where the $i$-th color is used to color at most $b_i$ many vertices. This problem generalizes two well-studied graph coloring problems, {\sc Bounded Coloring Problem} (\bocp) and {\sc Equitable Coloring Problem} (\ecp) and as in the case of other coloring problems, it is \nph even for constant values of $c$. So we study \bcp under the…
A clique coloring of a graph is an assignment of colors to its vertices such that no maximal clique is monochromatic. We initiate the study of structural parameterizations of the Clique Coloring problem which asks whether a given graph has a clique coloring with $q$ colors. For fixed $q \ge 2$, we give an $\mathcal{O}^{\star}(q^{tw})$-time algorithm when the input graph is given together with one of its tree decompositions of width $tw$. We complement this result with a matching lower bound under the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis. We furthermore show that (when the number of colors is unb…
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 $…
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…
Structural graph parameters, such as treewidth, pathwidth, and clique-width, are a central topic of study in parameterized complexity. A main aim of research in this area is to understand the "price of generality" of these widths: as we transition from more restrictive to more general notions, which are the problems that see their complexity status deteriorate from fixed-parameter tractable to intractable? This type of question is by now very well-studied, but, somewhat strikingly, the algorithmic frontier between the two (arguably) most central width notions, treewidth and pathwidth, is still…
In the Selective Coloring problem, we are given an integer $k$, a graph $G$, and a partition of $V(G)$ into $p$ parts, and the goal is to decide whether or not we can pick exactly one vertex of each part and obtain a $k$-colorable induced subgraph of $G$. This generalization of Vertex Coloring has only recently begun to be studied by Demange et al. [Theoretical Computer Science, 2014], motivated by scheduling problems on distributed systems, with Guo et al. [TAMC, 2020] discussing the first results on the parameterized complexity of the problem. In this work, we study multiple structural param…
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 …
Given an undirected graph $G$ and integers $c$ and $k$, the Maximum Edge-Colorable Subgraph problem asks whether we can delete at most $k$ edges in $G$ to obtain a graph that has a proper edge coloring with at most $c$ colors. We show that Maximum Edge-Colorable Subgraph admits, for every fixed $c$, a linear-size problem kernel when parameterized by the edge deletion distance of $G$ to a graph with maximum degree $c-1$. This parameterization measures the distance to instances that, due to Vizing's famous theorem, are trivial yes-instances. For $c\le 4$, we also provide a linear-size kernel for…
In the deletion version of the list homomorphism problem, we are given graphs G and H, a list L(v) that is a subset of V(H) for each vertex v of G, and an integer k. The task is to decide whether there exists a subset W of V(G) of size at most k such that there is a homomorphism from G \ W to H respecting the lists. We show that DL-Hom(H), parameterized by k and |H|, is fixed-parameter tractable for any (P6, C6)-free bipartite graph H; already for this restricted class of graphs, the problem generalizes Vertex Cover, Odd Cycle Transversal, and Vertex Multiway Cut parameterized by the size of t…
In a vertex-colored graph, an edge is happy if its endpoints have the same color. Similarly, a vertex is happy if all its incident edges are happy. Motivated by the computation of homophily in social networks, we consider the algorithmic aspects of the following Maximum Happy Edges (k-MHE) problem: given a partially k-colored graph G, find an extended full k-coloring of G maximizing the number of happy edges. When we want to maximize the number of happy vertices, the problem is known as Maximum Happy Vertices (k-MHV). We further study the complexity of the problems and their weighted variants.…
In an undirected graph, a proper (k,i)-coloring is an assignment of a set of k colors to each vertex such that any two adjacent vertices have at most i common colors. The (k,i)-coloring problem is to compute the minimum number of colors required for a proper (k,i)-coloring. This is a generalization of the classic graph coloring problem. We show a parameterized algorithm for the (k,i)-coloring problem with the size of the feedback vertex set as a parameter. Our algorithm does not use tree-width machinery, thus answering a question of Majumdar, Neogi, Raman and Tale [CALDAM 2017]. We also give a…
We introduce a new type of adversary for online graph problems. The new adversary is parameterized by a single integer $κ$, which upper bounds the number of connected components that the adversary can use at any time during the presentation of the online graph $G$. We call this adversary "$κ$ components bounded", or $κ$-CB for short. On one hand, this adversary is restricted compared to the classical adversary because of the $κ$-CB constraint. On the other hand, we seek competitive ratios parameterized only by $κ$ with no dependence on the input length $n$, thereby giving the new adversary pow…
It is known that a number of natural graph problems which are FPT parameterized by treewidth become W-hard when parameterized by clique-width. It is therefore desirable to find a different structural graph parameter which is as general as possible, covers dense graphs but does not incur such a heavy algorithmic penalty. The main contribution of this paper is to consider a parameter called modular-width, defined using the well-known notion of modular decompositions. Using a combination of ILPs and dynamic programming we manage to design FPT algorithms for Coloring and Partitioning into paths (a…
In this work we start the investigation of tight complexity bounds for connectivity problems parameterized by cutwidth assuming the Strong Exponential-Time Hypothesis (SETH). Van Geffen et al. posed this question for odd cycle transversal and feedback vertex set. We answer it for these two and four further problems, namely connected vertex cover, connected domintaing set, steiner tree, and connected odd cycle transversal. For the latter two problems it sufficed to prove lower bounds that match the running time inherited from parameterization by treewidth; for the others we provide faster algor…
We provide a general framework to exclude parameterized running times of the form $O(\ell^β+ n^γ)$ for problems that have polynomial running time lower bounds under hypotheses from fine-grained complexity. Our framework is based on cross-compositions from parameterized complexity. We (conditionally) exclude running times of the form $O(\ell^{γ/{(γ-1)} - ε} + n^γ)$ for any $1<γ<2$ and $ε>0$ for the following problems: - Longest Common Subsequence: Given two length-$n$ strings and $\ell\in\mathbb{N}$, is there a common subsequence of length $\ell$? - Discrete Fréchet Distance: Given two lists of…
We present randomized algorithms for some well-studied, hard combinatorial problems: the k-path problem, the p-packing of q-sets problem, and the q-dimensional p-matching problem. Our algorithms solve these problems with high probability in time exponential only in the parameter (k, p, q) and using polynomial space; the constant bases of the exponentials are significantly smaller than in previous works. For example, for the k-path problem the improvement is from 2 to 1.66. We also show how to detect if a d-regular graph admits an edge coloring with $d$ colors in time within a polynomial factor…
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 $G$. The problem of determining $σ(G,w)$ has received considerable attention during the last years, and h…
Given a graph $G$ and a positive integer $k$, the 2-Load coloring problem is to check whether there is a $2$-coloring $f:V(G) \rightarrow \{r,b\}$ of $G$ such that for every $i \in \{r,b\}$, there are at least $k$ edges with both end vertices colored $i$. It is known that the problem is NP-complete even on special classes of graphs like regular graphs. Gutin and Jones (Inf Process Lett 114:446-449, 2014) showed that the problem is fixed-parameter tractable by giving a kernel with at most $7k$ vertices. Barbero et al. (Algorithmica 79:211-229, 2017) obtained a kernel with less than $4k$ vertice…
In the Binary Networked Public Goods game, every player needs to decide if she participates in a public project whose utility is shared equally by the community. We study the problem of deciding if there exists a pure strategy Nash equilibrium (PSNE) in such games. The problem is already known to be NP-complete. We provide fine-grained analysis of this problem under the lens of parameterized complexity theory. We consider various natural graph parameters and show either W[1]-hardness or exhibit an FPT algorithm. We finally exhibit some special graph classes, for example path, cycle, bi-clique,…
