The eternal graph colouring problem, recently introduced by Klostermeyer and Mendoza, is a version of the graph colouring game, where two players take turns properly colouring a graph. In this note, we study the eternal game chromatic number of random graphs. We show that with high probability $χ_{g}^{\infty}(G_{n,p}) = (\frac{p}{2} + o(1))n$ for odd $n$, and also for even $n$ when $p=\frac{1}{k}$ for some $k \in \mathbb{N}$. The upper bound applies for even $n$ and any other value of $p$ as well, but we conjecture in this case this upper bound is not sharp. Finally, we answer a question posed by Klostermeyer and Mendoza.
Game coloring is a well-studied two-player game in which each player properly colors one vertex of a graph at a time until all the vertices are colored. An `eternal' version of game coloring is introduced in this paper in which the vertices are colored and re-colored from a color set over a sequence of rounds. In a given round, each vertex is colored, or re-colored, once, so that a proper coloring is maintained. Player 1 wants to maintain a proper coloring forever, while player 2 wants to force the coloring process to fail. The eternal game chromatic number of a graph $G$ is defined to be the …
Picaria is a traditional board game, played by the Zuni tribe of the American Southwest and other parts of the world, such as a rural Southwest region in Sweden. It is related to the popular children's game of Tic-tac-toe, but the 2 players have only 3 stones each, and in the second phase of the game, pieces are slided, along specified move edges, in attempts to create the three-in-a-row. We provide a rigorous solution, and prove that the game is a draw; moreover our solution gives insights to strategies that players can use.
While the game chromatic number of a forest is known to be at most 4, no simple criteria are known for determining the game chromatic number of a forest. We first state necessary and sufficient conditions for forests with game chromatic number 2 and then investigate the differences between forests with game chromatic number 3 and 4. In doing so, we present a minimal example of a forest with game chromatic number 4, criteria for determining the game chromatic number of a forest without vertices of degree 3, and an example of a forest with maximum degree 3 and game chromatic number 4.
We introduce the game of Cops and Eternal Robbers played on graphs, where there are infinitely many robbers that appear sequentially over distinct plays of the game. A positive integer $t$ is fixed, and the cops are required to capture the robber in at most $t$ time-steps in each play. The associated optimization parameter is the eternal cop number, denoted by $c_t^{\infty},$ which equals the eternal domination number in the case $t=1,$ and the cop number for sufficiently large $t.$ We study the complexity of Cops and Eternal Robbers, and show that game is NP-hard when $t$ is a fixed constant …
Given a graph G and an integer k, two players take turns coloring the vertices of G one by one using k colors so that neighboring vertices get different colors. The first player wins iff at the end of the game all the vertices of G are colored. The game chromatic number χ_g(G) is the minimum k for which the first player has a winning strategy. In this paper we analyze the asymptotic behavior of this parameter for a random graph G_{n,p}. We show that with high probability the game chromatic number of G_{n,p} is at least twice its chromatic number but, up to a multiplicative constant, has the sa…
Fong et al. (The game chromatic index of some trees with maximum degree four and adjacent degree-four vertices, J. Comb Optim 36 (2018) 1-12) proved that the game chromatic index of any tree $T$ of maximum degree 4 whose degree-four vertices induce a forest of paths of length $l$ less than 2 is at most 5. In this paper, we show that the bound 5 is also valid for $l\leq 2$. This partially solves the problem of characterization of the trees whose game chromatic index exceeds the maximum degree by at most 1, which was proposed by Cai and Zhu (Game chromatic index of $k$-degenerate graphs, J. Grap…
Suppose that two players take turns coloring the vertices of a given graph G with k colors. In each move the current player colors a vertex such that neighboring vertices get different colors. The first player wins this game if and only if at the end, all the vertices are colored. The game chromatic number $χ_g(G)$ is defined as the smallest k for which the first player has a winning strategy. Recently, Bohman, Frieze and Sudakov [Random Structures and Algorithms 2008] analysed the game chromatic number of random graphs and obtained lower and upper bounds of the same order of magnitude. In thi…
Several games that arise from graph coloring have been introduced and studied. Let $φ$ denote a graph invariant that arises from such a game. If $G$ is a graph and $φ(G-x)\neq φ(G)=k$, $k \geq 1$, holds true for every vertex $x \in V(G)$, then $G$ is called a $k$-$φ$-game-vertex-critical graph. We study the concept of $φ$-game-vertex-criticality for $φ\in \{χ_g, χ_i, χ_{ig}^{A}, χ_{ig}^{AB}\}$, where $χ_g$ denotes the standard game chromatic number, $χ_i$ denotes the indicated game chromatic number and $χ_{ig}^{A}$, $χ_{ig}^{AB}$ denote two versions of the independence game chromatic number. S…
We consider the following game, played on a $k$-uniform hypergraph $H$. There are $q$ colors available and two players take it in turns to color vertices. A partial coloring is proper if no edge is mono-chromatic. One player, A, wishes to color all the vertices and the other player, B, wishes to prevent this. The {\em game chromatic number} $χ_g(H)$ is the minimum number of colors for which A has a winning strategy. We consider this in the context of a random $k$-uniform hypergraph and prove upper and lower bounds that hold w.h.p.
Given a graph G and an integer k, two players take turns coloring the vertices of G one by one using k colors so that neighboring vertices get different colors. The first player wins iff at the end of the game all the vertices of $G$ are colored. The game chromatic number χ_g(G) is the minimum k for which the first player has a winning strategy. The paper \cite{BFS} began the analysis of the asymptotic behavior of this parameter for a random graph G_{n,p}. This paper provides some further analysis for graphs with constant average degree i.e. np=O(1) and for random regular graphs.
We propose a new coloring game on a graph, called the independence coloring game, which is played by two players with opposite goals. The result of the game is a proper coloring of vertices of a graph $G$, and Alice's goal is that as few colors as possible are used during the game, while Bob wants to maximize the number of colors. The game consists of rounds, and in round $i$, where $i=1,2,,\ldots$, the players are taking turns in selecting a previously unselected vertex of $G$ and giving it color $i$ (hence, in each round the selected vertices form an independent set). The game ends when all …
We prove that, in games in which all the guards move at the same turn, the eternal domination and the clique-connected cover numbers coincide for interval graphs. A linear algorithm for the eternal dominating set problem is obtained as a by-product.
We consider the graph coloring game, a game in which two players take turns properly coloring the vertices of a graph, with one player attempting to complete a proper coloring, and the other player attempting to prevent a proper coloring. We show that if a graph $G$ has a proper coloring in which the game coloring number of each bicolored subgraph is bounded, then the game chromatic number of $G$ is bounded. As a corollary to this result, we show that for two graphs $G_1$ and $G_2$ with bounded game coloring number, the Cartesian product $G_1 \square G_2$ has bounded game chromatic number, ans…
In this paper, we study the feedback game on $3$-chromatic Eulerian triangulations of surfaces. We prove that the winner of the game on every $3$-chromatic Eulerian triangulation of a surface all of whose vertices have degree $0$ modulo $4$ is always fixed. Moreover, we also study the case of $3$-chromatic Eulerian triangulations of surfaces which have at least two vertices whose degrees are $2$ modulo $4$, and in particular, we determine the winner of the game on a concrete class of such graphs, called an octahedral path.
We study the two-player game where Maker and Breaker alternately color the edges of a given graph $G$ with $k$ colors such that adjacent edges never get the same color. Maker's goal is to play such that at the end of the game, all edges are colored. Vice-versa, Breaker wins as soon as there is an uncolored edge where every color is blocked. The game chromatic index $χ'_g(G)$ denotes the smallest $k$ for which Maker has a winning strategy. The trivial bounds $Δ(G) \le χ_g'(G) \le 2Δ(G)-1$ hold for every graph $G$, where $Δ(G)$ is the maximum degree of $G$. In 2008, Beveridge, Bohman, Frieze, an…
We play a variation of Nim on stacks of tokens. Take your favorite increasing sequence of positive integers and color the tokens according to the following rule. Each token on a level that corresponds to a number in the sequence is colored red; if the level does not correspond to a number in the sequence, color it green. Now play Nim on a arbitrary number of stacks with the extra rule: if all top tokens are green, then you can make any move you like. On two stacks, we give explicit characterizations for winning the normal play version for some popular sequences, such as Beatty sequences and th…
We study the hat chromatic number of a graph defined in the following way: there is one player at each vertex of a loopless graph $G$, an adversary places a hat of one of $K$ colors on the head of each player, two players can see each other's hats if and only if they are at adjacent vertices. All players simultaneously try to guess the color of their hat. The players cannot communicate but collectively determine a strategy before the hats are placed. The hat chromatic number, $μ(G)$, is the largest number $K$ of colors such that the players are able to fix a strategy that will ensure that for …
In the eternal domination game, an attacker attacks a vertex at each turn and a team of guards must move a guard to the attacked vertex to defend it. The guards may only move to adjacent vertices and no more than one guard may occupy a vertex. The goal is to determine the eternal domination number of a graph which is the minimum number of guards required to defend the graph against an infinite sequence of attacks. In this paper, we continue the study of the eternal domination game on strong grids. Cartesian grids have been vastly studied with tight bounds for small grids such as $2\times n$, $…
We study the m-eternal domination problem from the perspective of the attacker. For many graph classes, the minimum required number of guards to defend eternally is known. By definition, if the defender has less than the required number of guards, then there exists a sequence of attacks that ensures the attacker's victory. Little is known about such sequences of attacks, in particular, no bound on its length is known. We show that if the game is played on a tree $T$ on $n$ vertices and the defender has less than the necessary number of guards, then the attacker can win in at most $n$ turns. Fu…
Consider the following game on a graph $G$: Alice and Bob take turns coloring the vertices of $G$ properly from a fixed set of colors; Alice wins when the entire graph has been colored, while Bob wins when some uncolored vertices have been left. The game chromatic number of $G$ is the minimum number of colors that allows Alice to win the game. The game Grundy number of $G$ is defined similarly except that the players color the vertices according to the first-fit rule and they only decide on the order in which it is applied. The $(a,b)$-game chromatic and Grundy numbers are defined likewise exc…
The graph coloring game is a two-player game in which, given a graph G and a set of k colors, the two players, Alice and Bob, take turns coloring properly an uncolored vertex of G, Alice having the first move. Alice wins the game if and only if all the vertices of G are eventually colored. The game chromatic number of a graph G is then defined as the smallest integer k for which Alice has a winning strategy when playing the graph coloring game on G with k colors. In this paper, we introduce and study a new version of the graph coloring game by requiring that, after each player's turn, the subg…
A coloring of the ground set of a matroid is proper if elements of the same color form an independent set. For a loopless matroid $M$, its chromatic number $χ(M)$ is the minimum number of colors in a proper coloring. In this note we study a game-theoretic variant of this parameter. Suppose that Alice and Bob alternately properly color the ground set of a matroid $M$ using a fixed set of colors. The game ends when the whole matroid has been colored, or if they arrive to a partial coloring that cannot be further properly extended. Alice wins in the first case, while Bob in the second. The game c…
Total variant of well known graph coloring game is considered. We determine exact values of total game chromatic number for some classes of graphs and show show the strategie for first player to win the game. We also show relation between total game coloring number and game coloring index.
Every partial colouring of a Hamming graph is uniquely related to a partial Latin hyper-rectangle. In this paper we introduce the $Θ$-stabilized $(a,b)$-colouring game for Hamming graphs, a variant of the $(a,b)$-colouring game so that each move must respect a given autotopism $Θ$ of the resulting partial Latin hyper-rectangle. We examine the complexity of this variant by means of its chromatic number. We focus in particular on the bi-dimensional case, for which the game is played on the Cartesian product of two complete graphs, and also on the hypercube case.
A coloring of a matroid is proper if elements of the same color form an independent set. For a loopless matroid M, its chromatic number χ(M) is the minimum number of colors that suffices to color properly the ground set E of M. In this note we study a game-theoretic variant of this parameter proposed by Grytczuk. Suppose that in each round of the game Alice indicates an uncolored yet element e of E, then Bob colors it using a color from a fixed set of colors C. The rule Bob has to obey is that it is a proper coloring. The game ends if the whole matroid has been colored or if Bob can not color …
We denote by $χ$ g (G) the game chromatic number of a graph G, which is the smallest number of colors Alice needs to win the coloring game on G. We know from Montassier et al. [M. Montassier, P. Ossona de Mendez, A. Raspaud and X. Zhu, Decomposing a graph into forests, J. Graph Theory Ser. B, 102(1):38-52, 2012] and, independantly, from Wang and Zhang, [Y. Wang and Q. Zhang. Decomposing a planar graph with girth at least 8 into a forest and a matching, Discrete Maths, 311:844-849, 2011] that planar graphs with girth at least 8 have game chromatic number at most 5. One can ask if this bound of …
The game domination number is a graph invariant that arises from a game, which is related to graph domination in a similar way as the game chromatic number is related to graph coloring. In this paper we show that verifying whether the game domination number of a graph is bounded by a given integer is PSPACE-complete. This contrasts the situation of the game coloring problem whose complexity is still unknown.
An incidence of a graph $G$ is a pair $(v,e)$ where $v$ is a vertex of $G$ and $e$ an edge incident to $v$. Two incidences $(v,e)$ and $(w,f)$ are adjacent whenever $v = w$, or $e = f$, or $vw = e$ or $f$. The incidence coloring game [S.D. Andres, The incidence game chromatic number, Discrete Appl. Math. 157 (2009), 1980-1987] is a variation of the ordinary coloring game where the two players, Alice and Bob, alternately color the incidences of a graph, using a given number of colors, in such a way that adjacent incidences get distinct colors. If the whole graph is colored then Alice wins the g…
A graph $G = (V,E)$ is said to be saturated with respect to a monotone increasing graph property ${\mathcal P}$, if $G \notin {\mathcal P}$ but $G \cup \{e\} \in {\mathcal P}$ for every $e \in \binom{V}{2} \setminus E$. The saturation game $(n, {\mathcal P})$ is played as follows. Two players, called Mini and Max, progressively build a graph $G \subseteq K_n$, which does not satisfy ${\mathcal P}$. Starting with the empty graph on $n$ vertices, the two players take turns adding edges $e \in \binom{V(K_n)}{2} \setminus E(G)$, for which $G \cup \{e\} \notin {\mathcal P}$, until no such edge exis…
Very recently, a long-standing open question proposed by Bodlaender in 1991 was answered: the graph coloring game is PSPACE-complete. In 2019, Andres and Lock proposed five variants of the graph coloring game and left open the question of PSPACE-hardness related to them. In this paper, we prove that these variants are PSPACE-complete for the graph coloring game and also for the greedy coloring game, even if the number of colors is the chromatic number. Finally, we also prove that a connected version of the graph coloring game, proposed by Charpentier et al. in 2019, is PSPACE-complete.
We introduce two generalizations of Kochen-Specker (KS) sets: projective KS sets and generalized KS sets. We then use projective KS sets to characterize all graphs for which the chromatic number is strictly larger than the quantum chromatic number. Here, the quantum chromatic number is defined via a nonlocal game based on graph coloring. We further show that from any graph with separation between these two quantities, one can construct a classical channel for which entanglement assistance increases the one-shot zero-error capacity. As an example, we exhibit a new family of classical channels w…
Structural Parameterizations for Eternal Vertex Cover
Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar（印度理工学院甘地纳加尔分校）；School of Computer Science, University of Leeds（利兹大学计算机科学学院）；Sapienza University of Rome（罗马第一大学）
We consider the following two-player game: Maxi and Mini start with the empty graph on $n$ vertices and take turns, always adding one additional edge to the graph such that the chromatic number is at most $k$, where $k \in \mathbb{N}$ is a given parameter. The game is over when the graph is saturated and no further edge can be inserted. Maxi wants to maximize the length of the game while Mini wants to minimize it. The score $s(n,χ_{>k})$ denotes the number of edges in the final graph, given that both players followed an optimal strategy. This colorability game belongs to the family of \emph{sa…
We study a combinatorial coloring game between two players, Spoiler and Algorithm, who alternate turns. First, Spoiler places a new token at a vertex in $G$, and Algorithm responds by assigning a color to the new token. Algorithm must ensure that tokens on the same or adjacent vertices receive distinct colors. Spoiler must ensure that the token graph (in which two tokens are adjacent if and only if their distance in $G$ is at most $1$) has chromatic number at most $w$. Algorithm wants to minimize the number of colors used, and Spoiler wants to force as many colors as possible. Let $f(w,G)$ be …
The main goal of this paper is to formalize and explore a connection between chromatic properties of graphs with geometric representations and competitive analysis of on-line algorithms, which became apparent after the recent construction of triangle-free geometric intersection graphs with arbitrarily large chromatic number due to Pawlik et al. We show that on-line graph coloring problems give rise to classes of game graphs with a natural geometric interpretation. We use this concept to estimate the chromatic number of graphs with geometric representations by finding, for appropriate simpler g…
The on-line choice number of a graph is a variation of the choice number defined through a two person game. It is at least as large as the choice number for all graphs and is strictly larger for some graphs. In particular, there are graphs $G$ with $|V(G)| = 2 χ(G)+1$ whose on-line choice numbers are larger than their chromatic numbers, in contrast to a recently confirmed conjecture of Ohba that every graph $G$ with $|V(G)| \le 2 χ(G)+1$ has its choice number equal its chromatic number. Nevertheless, an on-line version of Ohba conjecture was proposed in [P. Huang, T. Wong and X. Zhu, Applicati…
University of Liverpool（利物浦大学）；The Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Computer Science（捷克科学院计算机研究所）；Charles University, Computer Science Institute（查理大学计算机研究所）
