For a fixed graph $H$, what is the smallest number of colours $C$ such that there is a proper edge-colouring of the complete graph $K_n$ with $C$ colours containing no two vertex-disjoint colour-isomorphic copies, or repeats, of $H$? We study this function and its generalisation to more than two copies using a variety of combinatorial, probabilistic and algebraic techniques. For example, we show that for any tree $T$ there exists a constant $c$ such that any proper edge-colouring of $K_n$ with at most $c n^2$ colours contains two repeats of $T$, while there are colourings with at most $c' n^{3/2}$ colours for some absolute constant $c'$ containing no three repeats of any tree with at least two edges. We also show that for any graph $H$ containing a cycle there exist $k$ and $c$ such that there is a proper edge-colouring of $K_n$ with at most $c n$ colours containing no $k$ repeats of $H$, while, for a tree $T$ with $m$ edges, a colouring with $o(n^{(m+1)/m})$ colours contains $ω(1)$ repeats of $T$.
We consider vertex colourings of $r$-uniform hypergraphs $H$ in the classical sense, that is such that no edge has all its vertices given the same colour, and $(2,2)$-colourings of $H$ in which the vertices in any edge are given exactly two colours. This is a special case of constrained colourings introduced by Bujtas and Tuza which, in turn, is a generalisation of Voloshin's colourings of mixed hypergraphs. We study, $χ(H)$, the classical chromatic number, and the $(2,2)$-spectrum of $H$, that is, the set of integers $k$ for which $H$ has a $(2,2)$-colouring using exactly $k$ colours. We pres…
A proper vertex-colouring of a simple graph $G$ is said to be odd if, for every non-isolated vertex $v$ of $G$, some colour appears an odd number of times in the neighbourhood of $v$. We show that if $G$ embeds in the torus, then it admits a proper odd vertex-colouring with at most $9$ colours.
We give tight upper and lower bounds on the internal energy per particle in the antiferromagnetic $q$-state Potts model on $4$-regular graphs, for $q\ge 5$. This proves the first case of a conjecture of the author, Perkins, Jenssen, and Roberts on extensions of their methods, and implies tight bounds on the antiferromagnetic Potts partition function. The zero-temperature limit gives upper and lower bounds on the number of proper $q$-colourings of $4$-regular graphs, which almost proves the case $d=4$ of a conjecture of Galvin and Tetali. For any $q \ge 5$ we prove that the number of proper $q$…
Two colourings of a graph are orthogonal if they have the property that when two vertices are coloured with the same colour in one colouring, then those vertices receive distinct colours in the other colouring. In this paper, orthogonal colourings of Cayley graphs are discussed. Firstly, the orthogonal chromatic number of cycle graphs are completely determined. Secondly, the orthogonal chromatic number of certain circulant graphs is explored. Lastly, orthogonal colourings of product graphs and Hamming graphs are studied.
Following the recent paper which initiated the study of colour isomorphism problems for complete graphs, we obtain upper bounds for $f_2(n,H)$ for a family of graphs $H$ obtained as the $K_0$-th rooted power of a balanced rooted tree for some sufficiently large $K_0$. The proof uses the random polynomial method of Bukh. We also obtain matching lower bounds for $1$-subdivisions of the complete bipartite graph.
We survey results concerning reconfigurations of colourings and dominating sets in graphs. The vertices of the $k$-colouring graph $\mathcal{C}_{k}(G)$ of a graph $G$ correspond to the proper $k$-colourings of a graph $G$, with two $k$-colourings being adjacent whenever they differ in the colour of exactly one vertex. Similarly, the vertices of the $k$-edge-colouring graph $\mathcal{EC}_{k}(G)$ of $g$ are the proper $k$-edge-colourings of $G$, where two $k$-edge-colourings are adjacent if one can be obtained from the other by switching two colours along an edge-Kempe chain, i.e., a maximal two…
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…
The notion of a Galvin orientation of a line graph is introduced, generalizing the idea used by Galvin in his landmark proof of the list-edge-colouring conjecture for bipartite graphs. If L(G) has a proper Galvin orientation with respect to k, then it immediately implies that G is k-list-edge-colourable, but the converse is not true. The stronger property is studied in graphs of the form `bipartite plus an edge', the Petersen graph, cliques, and simple graphs without odd cycles of length 5 or longer.
For integer q>1, we derive edge q-colouring models for (i) the Tutte polynomial of a graph G on the hyperbola H_q, (ii) the symmetric weight enumerator of the set of group-valued q-flows of G, and (iii) a more general vertex colouring model partition function that includes these polynomials and the principal specialization order q of Stanley's symmetric monochrome polynomial. In the second half of the paper we exhibit a family of non-symmetric edge q-colouring models defined on k-regular graphs, whose partition functions for q >= k each evaluate the number of proper edge k-colourings of G when…
We consider the following two-player game, parametrised by positive integers $n$ and $k$. The game is played between Painter and Builder, alternately taking turns, with Painter moving first. The game starts with the empty graph on $n$ vertices. In each round Painter colours a vertex of her choice by one of the $k$ colours and Builder claims an edge between two previously unconnected vertices. Both players should maintain that during the game the graph admits a proper $k$-colouring. The game ends if either all $n$ vertices have been coloured, or Painter has no legal move. In the former case, Pa…
A proper vertex colouring of a graph $G$ is referred to as conflict-free if in the neighbourhood of every vertex some colour appears exactly once, while it is called $h$-conflict-free if there are at least $h$ such colours for each vertex of $G$. The least numbers of colours in such colourings of $G$ are denoted $χ_{\rm pcf}(G)$ and $χ_{\rm pcf}^h(G)$, respectively. It is known that $χ_{\rm pcf}^h(G)$ can be as large as $(h+1)(Δ+1)\approx Δ^2$ for graphs with maximum degree $Δ$ and $h$ very close to $Δ$. We provide several new upper bounds for these parameters for graphs with minimum degrees $…
Consider any dense r-regular quasirandom bipartite graph H with parts of size n and fix a set of r colours. Let L be a random list assignment where each colour is available for each edge of H with probability p. We show that the threshold probability for H to have a proper L-edge-colouring is p of order (log n)/n. This answers a question of Kang, Kelly, Kühn, Methuku and Osthus. We thus obtain the same threshold for Steiner Triple Systems and Latin squares; the latter answers a question of Johanssen from 2006.
One of the most famous applications of Graph Theory is in the field of Channel Assignment Problems. There are varieties of graph colouring concepts that are used for different requirements of frequency assignments in communication channels. We introduce here L(t, 1)-colouring of graphs. This has its foundation in T-colouring and L(p, q)-colouring. For a given finite set T including zero, an L(t, 1)-colouring of a graph G is an assignment of non-negative integers to the vertices of G such that the difference between the colours of adjacent vertices must not belong to the set T and the colours o…
With any (not necessarily proper) edge $k$-colouring $γ:E(G)\longrightarrow\{1,\dots,k\}$ of a graph $G$,one can associate a vertex colouring $σ\_γ$ given by $σ\_γ(v)=\sum\_{e\ni v}γ(e)$.A neighbour-sum-distinguishing edge $k$-colouring is an edge colouring whose associated vertex colouring is proper.The neighbour-sum-distinguishing index of a graph $G$ is then the smallest $k$ for which $G$ admitsa neighbour-sum-distinguishing edge $k$-colouring.These notions naturally extends to total colourings of graphs that assign colours to both vertices and edges.We study in this paper equitable neighbo…
A strong edge-colouring of a graph is a proper edge-colouring where each colour class induces a matching. It is known that every planar graph with maximum degree $Δ$ has a strong edge-colouring with at most $4Δ+4$ colours. We show that $3Δ+1$ colours suffice if the graph has girth 6, and $4Δ$ colours suffice if $Δ\geq 7$ or the girth is at least 5. In the last part of the paper, we raise some questions related to a long-standing conjecture of Vizing on proper edge-colouring of planar graphs.
For a positive integer k and a graph G, we consider proper vertex-colourings of G with k colours in which all k colours are actually used. We call such a colouring a strong k-colouring. The strong k-colour graph of G, S_k(G), is the graph that has all the strong k-colourings of G as its vertex set, and two colourings are adjacent in S_k(G) if they differ in colour on only one vertex of G. In this paper, we show some results related to the question : For what G and k is S_k(G) connected ?
In this paper we introduce the notion of $Σ$-colouring of a graph $G$: For given subsets $Σ(v)$ of neighbours of $v$, for every $v\in V(G)$, this is a proper colouring of the vertices of $G$ such that, in addition, vertices that appear together in some $Σ(v)$ receive different colours. This concept generalises the notion of colouring the square of graphs and of cyclic colouring of graphs embedded in a surface. We prove a general result for graphs embeddable in a fixed surface, which implies asymptotic versions of Wegner's and Borodin's Conjecture on the planar version of these two colourings. …
A constrained colouring or, more specifically, an $(α,β)$-colouring of a hypergraph $H$, is an assignment of colours to its vertices such that no edge of $H$ contains less than $α$ or more than $β$ vertices with different colours. This notion, introduced by B{ú}jtas and Tuza, generalises both classical hypergraph colourings and the more general Voloshin colourings of hypergraphs. In fact, for $r$-uniform hypergraphs, classical colourings correspond to $(2,r)$-colourings while an important instance of Voloshin colourings of $r$-uniform hypergraphs gives $(2, r-1)$-colourings. One intriguing asp…
We prove several results on approximate decompositions of edge-coloured quasirandom graphs into rainbow spanning structures. More precisely, we say that an edge-colouring of a graph is locally $\ell$-bounded if no vertex is incident to more than $\ell$ edges of any given colour, and that it is (globally) $g$-bounded if no colour appears more than $g$ times in the colouring. Note that every proper colouring of an $n$-vertex graph is locally $1$-bounded, and (globally) $n/2$-bounded. Our results imply the following: (i) The existence of approximate decompositions of edge-coloured $K_n$ into rain…
Soon after his 1964 seminal paper on edge colouring, Vizing asked the following question: can an optimal edge colouring be reached from any given proper edge colouring through a series of Kempe changes? We answer this question in the affirmative for triangle-free graphs.
A graph $G$ has the Perfect-Matching-Hamiltonian property (PMH-property) if for each one of its perfect matchings, there is another perfect matching of $G$ such that the union of the two perfect matchings yields a Hamiltonian cycle of $G$. The study of graphs that have the PMH-property, initiated in the 1970s by Las Vergnas and Häggkvist, combines three well-studied properties of graphs, namely matchings, Hamiltonicity and edge-colourings. In this work, we study these concepts for cubic graphs in an attempt to characterise those cubic graphs for which every perfect matching corresponds to one …
We study rainbow-free colourings of $k$-uniform hypergraphs; that is, colourings that use $k$ colours but with the property that no hyperedge attains all colours. We show that $p^*=(k-1)(\ln n)/n$ is the threshold function for the existence of a rainbow-free colouring in a random $k$-uniform hypergraph.
A k-valuation is a special type of edge k-colouring of a medial graph. Various graph polynomials, such as the Tutte, Penrose, Bollobás-Riordan, and transition polynomials, admit combinatorial interpretations and evaluations as weighted counts of k-valuations. In this paper, we consider a multivariate generating function of k-valuations. We show that this is a polynomial in k and hence defines a graph polynomial. We then show that the resulting polynomial has several desirable properties, including a recursive deletion-contraction-type definition, and specialises to the graph polynomials mentio…
A well-studied concept is that of the total chromatic number. A proper total colouring of a graph is a colouring of both vertices and edges so that every pair of adjacent vertices receive different colours, every pair of adjacent edges receive different colours and every vertex and incident edge receive different colours. This paper considers a strengthening of this condition and examines the minimum number of colours required for a total colouring with the additional property that for any adjacent vertices $u$ and $v$, the sets of colours incident to $u$ is different from the set of colours i…
A proper edge $k$-colouring of a graph $G=(V,E)$ is an assignment $c:E\to \{1,2,\ldots,k\}$ of colours to the edges of the graph such that no two adjacent edges are associated with the same colour. A neighbour sum distinguishing edge $k$-colouring, or nsd $k$-colouring for short, is a proper edge $k$-colouring such that $\sum_{e\ni u}c(e)\neq \sum_{e\ni v}c(e)$ for every edge $uv$ of $G$. We denote by $χ'_{\sum}(G)$ the neighbour sum distinguishing index of $G$, which is the least integer $k$ such that an nsd $k$-colouring of $G$ exists. By definition at least maximum degree, $Δ(G)$ colours ar…
The acyclic chromatic index, denoted by $a'(G)$, of a graph $G$ is the minimum number of colours used in any proper edge colouring of $G$ such that the union of any two colour classes does not contain a cycle, that is, forms a forest. We show that $a'(G\Box H)\le a'(G) + a'(H)$ for any two graphs $G$ and $H$ such that $max\{a'(G), a'(H)\} > 1$. Here, $G \Box H$ denotes the cartesian product of $G$ and $H$. This extends a recent result of [15] where tight and constructive bounds on $a'(G)$ were obtained for a class of grid-like graphs which can be expressed as the cartesian product of a number …
An edge-coloured cycle is $rainbow$ if all edges of the cycle have distinct colours. For $k\geq 1$, let $\mathcal{F}_{k}$ denote the family of all graphs with the property that any $k$ vertices lie on a cycle. For $G\in \mathcal{F}_{k}$, a $k$-$rainbow$ $cycle$ $colouring$ of $G$ is an edge-colouring such that any $k$ vertices of $G$ lie on a rainbow cycle in $G$. The $k$-$rainbow$ $cycle$ $index$ of $G$, denoted by $crx_{k}(G)$, is the minimum number of colours needed in a $k$-rainbow cycle colouring of $G$. In this paper, we restrict our attention to the computational aspects of $k$-rainbow …
An adjacent vertex distinguishing edge colouring of a graph $G$ without isolated edges is its proper edge colouring such that no pair of adjacent vertices meets the same set of colours in $G$. We show that such colouring can be chosen from any set of lists associated to the edges of $G$ as long as the size of every list is at least $Δ+CΔ^{\frac{1}{2}}(\logΔ)^4$, where $Δ$ is the maximum degree of $G$ and $C$ is a constant. The proof is probabilistic. The same is true in the environment of total colourings.
An edge colouring of a graph $G$ is called acyclic if it is proper and every cycle contains at least three colours. We show that for every $\varepsilon>0$, there exists a $g=g(\varepsilon)$ such that if $G$ has girth at least $g$ then $G$ admits an acyclic edge colouring with at most $(1+\varepsilon)Δ$ colours.
A proper vertex-colouring of a graph G is said to be locally identifying if for any pair u,v of adjacent vertices with distinct closed neighbourhoods, the sets of colours in the closed neighbourhoods of u and v are different. We show that any graph G has a locally identifying colouring with $2Δ^2-3Δ+3$ colours, where $Δ$ is the maximum degree of G, answering in a positive way a question asked by Esperet et al. We also provide similar results for locally identifying colourings which have the property that the colours in the neighbourhood of each vertex are all different and apply our method to …
A proper total $k$-colouring of a graph $G=(V,E)$ is an assignment $c : V \cup E\to \{1,2,\ldots,k\}$ of colours to the edges and the vertices of $G$ such that no two adjacent edges or vertices and no edge and its end-vertices are associated with the same colour. A total neighbour sum distinguishing $k$-colouring, or tnsd $k$-colouring for short, is a proper total $k$-colouring such that $\sum_{e\ni u}c(e)+c(u)\neq \sum_{e\ni v}c(e)+c(v)$ for every edge $uv$ of $G$. We denote by $χ''_Σ(G)$ the total neighbour sum distinguishing index of $G$, which is the least integer $k$ such that a tnsd edge…
The chromatic number, which refers to the minimum number of colours required to colour the vertices of graphs properly, is one of the most central notions of the graph chromatic theory. Several of its aspects of interest have been investigated in the literature, including variants for modifications of proper colourings. These variants include, notably, the achromatic number of graphs, which is the maximum number of colours required to colour the vertices of graphs properly so that each possible combination of distinct colours is assigned along some edge. The behaviours of this parameter have l…
In this paper, we study orthogonal colourings of random geometric graphs. Two colourings of a graph are orthogonal if they have the property that when two vertices receive the same colour in one colouring, then those vertices receive distinct colours in the other colouring. A random geometric graph $RG(n,r)$ is a graph constructed by randomly placing $n$ vertices in the unit square and connecting two vertices with an edge if and only if their distance is less than the threshold $r$. We show first that random geometric graphs with $r>n^{-α}$, where $0\leq α\leq\frac{1}{4}$, have an orthogonal c…
The size-Ramsey number $\hat{R}(F)$ of a graph $F$ is the smallest integer $m$ such that there exists a graph $G$ on $m$ edges with the property that any colouring of the edges of $G$ with two colours yields a monochromatic copy of $F$. In this paper, first we focus on the size-Ramsey number of a path $P_n$ on $n$ vertices. In particular, we show that $5n/2-15/2 \le \hat{R}(P_n) \le 74n$ for $n$ sufficiently large. (The upper bound uses expansion properties of random $d$-regular graphs.) This improves the previous lower bound, $\hat{R}(P_n) \ge (1+\sqrt{2})n-O(1)$, due to Bollobás, and the upp…
In 1982, Zaslavsky introduced the concept of a proper vertex colouring of a signed graph $G$ as a mapping $ϕ\colon V(G)\to \mathbb{Z}$ such that for any two adjacent vertices $u$ and $v$ the colour $ϕ(u)$ is different from the colour $σ(uv)ϕ(v)$, where is $σ(uv)$ is the sign of the edge $uv$. The substantial part of Zaslavsky's research concentrated on polynomial invariants related to signed graph colourings rather than on the behaviour of colourings of individual signed graphs. We continue the study of signed graph colourings by proposing the definition of a chromatic number for signed graphs…
Given a graph $G=(V,E)$ and a proper vertex colouring of $G$, a Kempe chain is a subset of $V$ that induces a maximal connected subgraph of $G$ in which every vertex has one of two colours. To make a Kempe change is to obtain one colouring from another by exchanging the colours of vertices in a Kempe chain. Two colourings are Kempe equivalent if each can be obtained from the other by a series of Kempe changes. A conjecture of Mohar asserts that, for $k \geq 3$, all $k$-colourings of $k$-regular graphs that are not complete are Kempe equivalent. We address the case $k=3$ by showing that all $3$…
The least $k$ admitting a proper edge colouring $c:E\to\{1,2,\ldots,k\}$ of a graph $G=(V,E)$ without isolated edges such that $\sum_{e\ni u}c(e)\neq \sum_{e\ni v}c(e)$ for every $uv\in E$ is denoted by $χ'_Σ(G)$. It has been conjectured that $χ'_Σ(G)\leq Δ+ 2$ for every connected graph of order at least three different from the cycle $C_5$, where $Δ$ is the maximum degree of $G$. It is known that $χ'_Σ(G) = Δ+ O(Δ^\frac{5}{6}\ln^\frac{1}{6}Δ)$ for a graph $G$ without isolated edges. We improve this upper bound to $χ'_Σ(G) = Δ+ O(Δ^\frac{1}{2})$ using a simpler approach involving a combinatori…
The Total Colouring Conjecture suggests that $Δ+3$ colours ought to suffice in order to provide a proper total colouring of every graph $G$ with maximum degree $Δ$. Thus far this has been confirmed up to an additive constant factor, and the same holds even if one additionally requires every pair of neighbours in $G$ to differ with respect to the sets of their incident colours, so called pallets. Within this paper we conjecture that an upper bound of the form $Δ+const.$ still remains valid even after extending the distinction requirement to pallets associated with vertices at distance at most $…
