Conflict-free connections: algorithm and complexity
Meng Ji, Xueliang Li, Xiaoyu Zhu
备注：
17 pages. The main change is in Subsection 3.2, Theorem 3.4, where we add the result and proof of the NP-completeness for the case $k=2$, which was not done in the old version
A path in an(a) edge(vertex)-colored graph is called \emph{a conflict-free path} if there exists a color used on only one of its edges(vertices). An(A) edge(vertex)-colored graph is called \emph{conflict-free (vertex-)connected} if there is a conflict-free path between each pair of distinct vertices. We call the graph $G$ \emph{strongly conflict-free connected }if there exists a conflict-free path of length $d_G(u,v)$ for every two vertices $u,v\in V(G)$. And the \emph{strong conflict-free connection number} of a connected graph $G$, denoted by $scfc(G)$, is defined as the smallest number of colors that are required to make $G$ strongly conflict-free connected. In this paper, we first investigate the question: Given a connected graph $G$ and a coloring $c: E(or\ V)\rightarrow \{1,2,\cdots,k\} \ (k\geq 1)$ of the graph, determine whether or not $G$ is, respectively, conflict-free connected, vertex-conflict-free connected, strongly conflict-free connected under coloring $c$. We solve this question by providing polynomial-time algorithms. We then show that it is NP-complete to decide whether there is a k-edge-coloring $(k\geq 2)$ of $G$ such that all pairs $(u,v)\in P \ (P\subset V\times V)$ are strongly conflict-free connected. Finally, we prove that the problem of deciding whether $scfc(G)\leq k$ $(k\geq 2)$ for a given graph $G$ is NP-complete.
We study the conflict-free connection coloring of trees, which is also the conflict-free coloring of the so-called edge-path hypergraphs of trees. We first prove that for a tree $T$ of order $n$, $cfc(T)\geq cfc(P_n)=\lceil \log_{2} n\rceil$, which completely confirms the conjecture of Li and Wu. We then present a sharp upper bound for the conflict-free connection number of trees by a simple algorithm. Furthermore, we show that the conflict-free connection number of the binomial tree with $2^{k-1}$ vertices is $k-1$. At last, we study trees which are $cfc$-critical, and prove that if a tree $T…
We show conflict complexity of every total Boolean function, recently introduced in [Swagato Sanyal. A composition theorem via conict complexity. arXiv preprint arXiv:1801.03285, 2018.] to prove a composition theorem of randomized decision tree complexity, is at least a half of its block sensitivity. We propose to compare conflict complexity with certificate complexity, and explain why it could be interesting.
A path in an edge-colored graph is called \emph{a conflict-free path} if there exists a color used on only one of its edges. An edge-colored graph is called \emph{conflict-free connected} if there is a conflict-free path between each pair of distinct vertices. The \emph{conflict-free connection number} of a connected graph $G$, denoted by $\mathit{cfc}(G)$, is defined as the smallest number of colors that are required to make $G$ conflict-free connected. In this paper, we obtain Erdös-Gallai-type results for the conflict-free connection numbers of graphs.
A path in a vertex-colored graph is called {\it conflict-free} if there is a color used on exactly one of its vertices. A vertex-colored graph is said to be {\it conflict-free vertex-connected} if any two vertices of the graph are connected by a conflict-free path. The {\it conflict-free vertex-connection number}, denoted by $vcfc(G)$, is defined as the smallest number of colors required to make $G$ conflict-free vertex-connected. Li et al. conjectured that for a connected graph $G$ of order $n$, $vcfc(G)\leq vcfc(P_n)$. We confirm that the conjecture is true and pose a a relevant conjecture c…
A path in an(a) edge(vertex)-colored graph is called a conflict-free path if there exists a color used on only one of its edges(vertices). An(A) edge(vertex)-colored graph is called conflict-free (vertex-)connected if for each pair of distinct vertices, there is a conflict-free path connecting them. For a connected graph $G$, the conflict-free (vertex-)connection number of $G$, denoted by $cfc(G)(\text{or}~vcfc(G))$, is defined as the smallest number of colors that are required to make $G$ conflict-free (vertex-)connected. In this paper, we first give the exact value $cfc(T)$ for any tree $T$ …
An edge-colored graph $G$ is conflict-free connected if any two of its vertices are connected by a path, which contains a color used on exactly one of its edges. The conflict-free connection number of a connected graph $G$, denoted by $cfc(G)$, is defined as the minimum number of colors that are required in order to make $G$ conflict-free connected. In this paper, we investigate the relation between the conflict-free connection number and the independence number of a graph. We firstly show that $cfc(G)\le α(G)$ for any connected graph $G$, and an example is given showing that the bound is shar…
The concept of rainbow connection number of a graph was introduced by Chartrand et al. in 2008. Inspired by this concept, other concepts on colored version of connectivity in graphs were introduced, such as the monochromatic connection number by Caro and Yuster in 2011, the proper connection number by Borozan et al. in 2012, and the conflict-free connection number by Czap et al. in 2018, as well as some other variants of connection numbers later on. Chakraborty et al. proved that to compute the rainbow connection number of a graph is NP-hard. For a long time, it has been tried to fix the compu…
An edge-colored graph $G$ is conflict-free connected if any two of its vertices are connected by a path which contains a color used on exactly one of its edges. The conflict-free connection number of a connected graph $G$, denoted by $cfc(G)$, is the smallest number of colors needed in order to make $G$ conflict-free connected. In this paper, we show that almost all graphs have the conflict-free connection number 2. More precisely, let $G(n,p)$ denote the Erdős-Rényi random graph model, in which each of the $\binom{n}{2}$ pairs of vertices appears as an edge with probability $p$ independent fr…
A path in a vertex-colored graph is called \emph{conflict free} if there is a color used on exactly one of its vertices. A vertex-colored graph is said to be \emph{conflict-free vertex-connected} if any two vertices of the graph are connected by a conflict-free path. This paper investigates the question: For a connected graph $G$, what is the smallest number of colors needed in a vertex-coloring of $G$ in order to make $G$ conflict-free vertex-connected. As a result, we get that the answer is easy for $2$-connected graphs, and very difficult for connected graphs with more cut-vertices, includi…
A path in an edge-colored graph is called \emph{conflict-free} if it contains at least one color used on exactly one of its edges. An edge-colored graph $G$ is \emph{conflict-free connected} if for any two distinct vertices of $G$, there is a conflict-free path connecting them. For a connected graph $G$, the \emph{conflict-free connection number} of $G$, denoted by $cfc(G)$, is defined as the minimum number of colors that are required to make $G$ conflict-free connected. In this paper, we investigate the conflict-free connection numbers of connected claw-free graphs, especially line graphs. We…
A path $P$ in an edge-colored graph is called \emph{a conflict-free path} if there exists a color used on only one of the edges of $P$. An edge-colored graph $G$ is called \emph{conflict-free connected} if for each pair of distinct vertices of $G$ there is a conflict-free path in $G$ connecting them. The graph $G$ is called \emph{strongly conflict-free connected }if for every pair of vertices $u$ and $v$ of $G$ there exists a conflict-free path of length $d_G(u,v)$ in $G$ connecting them. For a connected graph $G$, the \emph{strong conflict-free connection number} of $G$, denoted by $\mathit{s…
An edge-colored graph $G$ is \emph{conflict-free connected} if, between each pair of distinct vertices, there exists a path containing a color used on exactly one of its edges. The \emph{conflict-free connection number} of a connected graph $G$, denoted by $cfc(G)$, is defined as the smallest number of colors that are needed in order to make $G$ conflict-free connected. In this paper, we determine all trees $T$ of order $n$ for which $cfc(T)=n-t$, where $t\geq 1$ and $n\geq 2t+2 $. Then we prove that $1\leq cfc(G)\leq n-1$ for a connected graph $G$, and characterize the graphs $G$ with $cfc(G)…
An edge-colored graph $G$ is \emph{conflict-free connected} if any two of its vertices are connected by a path, which contains a color used on exactly one of its edges. The \emph{conflict-free connection number} of a connected graph $G$, denoted by $cfc(G)$, is the smallest number of colors needed in order to make $G$ conflict-free connected. For a graph $G,$ let $C(G)$ be the subgraph of $G$ induced by its set of cut-edges. In this paper, we first show that, if $G$ is a connected non-complete graph $G$ of order $n\geq 9$ with $C(G)$ being a linear forest and with the minimum degree %$δ(G)\geq…
A conflict-free k-coloring of a graph assigns one of k different colors to some of the vertices such that, for every vertex v, there is a color that is assigned to exactly one vertex among v and v's neighbors. Such colorings have applications in wireless networking, robotics, and geometry, and are well-studied in graph theory. Here we study the natural problem of the conflict-free chromatic number chi_CF(G) (the smallest k for which conflict-free k-colorings exist). We provide results both for closed neighborhoods N[v], for which a vertex v is a member of its neighborhood, and for open neighbo…
A vertex-colored graph is {\it rainbow vertex-connected} if any two vertices are connected by a path whose internal vertices have distinct colors, which was introduced by Krivelevich and Yuster. The {\it rainbow vertex-connection} of a connected graph $G$, denoted by $rvc(G)$, is the smallest number of colors that are needed in order to make $G$ rainbow vertex-connected. In this paper, we study the computational complexity of vertex-rainbow connection of graphs and prove that computing $rvc(G)$ is NP-Hard. Moreover, we show that it is already NP-Complete to decide whether $rvc(G)=2$. We also p…
In this paper we prove that for any infinite word W whose set of factors is closed under reversal, the following conditions are equivalent: (I) all complete returns to palindromes are palindromes; (II) P(n) + P(n+1) = C(n+1) - C(n) + 2 for all n, where P (resp. C) denotes the palindromic complexity (resp. factor complexity) function of W, which counts the number of distinct palindromic factors (resp. factors) of each length in W.
In FOCS 2002, Even et al. showed that any set of $n$ discs in the plane can be Conflict-Free colored with a total of at most $O(\log n)$ colors. That is, it can be colored with $O(\log n)$ colors such that for any (covered) point $p$ there is some disc whose color is distinct from all other colors of discs containing $p$. They also showed that this bound is asymptotically tight. In this paper we prove the following stronger results: \begin{enumerate} \item [(i)] Any set of $n$ discs in the plane can be colored with a total of at most $O(k \log n)$ colors such that (a) for any point $p$ that is…
We study approaches for the exact solution of the \NP--hard minimum spanning tree problem under conflict constraints. Given a graph $G(V,E)$ and a set $C \subset E \times E$ of conflicting edge pairs, the problem consists of finding a conflict-free minimum spanning tree, i.e. feasible solutions are allowed to include at most one of the edges from each pair in $C$. The problem was introduced recently in the literature, with several results on its complexity and approximability. Some formulations and both exact and heuristic algorithms were also discussed, but computational results indicate cons…
A vertex-coloring of a hypergraph is conflict-free, if each edge contains a vertex whose color is not repeated on any other vertex of that edge. Let $f(r, Δ)$ be the smallest integer $k$ such that each $r$-uniform hypergraph of maximum vertex degree $Δ$ has a conflict-free coloring with at most $k$ colors. As shown by Tardos and Pach, similarly to a classical Brooks' type theorem for hypergraphs, $f(r, Δ)\leq Δ+1$. Compared to Brooks' theorem, according to which there is only a couple of graphs/hypergraphs that attain the $Δ+1$ bound, we show that there are several infinite classes of uniform …
More than ten years ago in 2008, a new kind of graph coloring appeared in graph theory, which is the {\it rainbow connection coloring} of graphs, and then followed by some other new concepts of graph colorings, such as {\it proper connection coloring, monochromatic connection coloring, and conflict-free connection coloring} of graphs. In about ten years of our consistent study, we found that these new concepts of graph colorings are actually quite different from the classic graph colorings. These {\it colored connection colorings} of graphs are brand-new colorings and they need to take care of…
An edge-colored graph $G$ is said to be rainbow connected if between each pair of vertices there exists a path which uses each color at most once. The rainbow connection number, denoted by $rc(G)$, is the minimum number of colors needed to make $G$ rainbow connected. Along with its variants, which consider vertex colorings and/or so-called strong colorings, the rainbow connection number has been studied from both the algorithmic and graph-theoretic points of view. In this paper we present a range of new results on the computational complexity of computing the four major variants of the rainbow…
