We present a simple deterministic distributed algorithm that computes a $(Δ+1)$-vertex coloring in $O(\log^2 Δ\cdot \log n)$ rounds. The algorithm can be implemented with $O(\log n)$-bit messages. The algorithm can also be extended to the more general $(degree+1)$-list coloring problem.
Obtaining a polylogarithmic-time deterministic algorithm for $(Δ+1)$-vertex coloring had remained a central open question in the area of distributed graph algorithms since the 1980s, until a recent network decomposition algorithm of Rozhoň and Ghaffari [STOC'20]. The current state of the art is based on an improved variant of their decomposition, which leads to an $O(\log^5 n)$-round algorithm for $(Δ+1)$-vertex coloring.
Our coloring algorithm is completely different and considerably simpler and faster. It solves the coloring problem in a direct way, without using network decomposition, by gradually rounding a certain fractional color assignment until reaching an integral color assignments. Moreover, via the approach of Chang, Li, and Pettie [STOC'18], this improved deterministic algorithm also leads to an improvement in the complexity of randomized algorithms for $(Δ+1)$-coloring, now reaching the bound of $O(\log^3\log n)$ rounds.
As a further application, we also provide faster deterministic distributed algorithms for the following variants of the vertex coloring problem. In graphs of arboricity $a$, we show that a $(2+ε)a$-vertex coloring can be computed in $O(\log^3 a\cdot\log n)$ rounds. We also show that for $Δ\geq 3$, a $Δ$-coloring of a $Δ$-colorable graph $G$ can be computed in $O(\log^2 Δ\cdot\log^2 n)$ rounds.
We consider coloring problems in the distributed message-passing setting. The previously-known deterministic algorithms for edge-coloring employed at least (2Delta - 1) colors, even though any graph admits an edge-coloring with Delta + 1 colors [V64]. Moreover, the previously-known deterministic algorithms that employed at most O(Delta) colors required superlogarithmic time [B15,BE10,BE11,FHK15]. In the current paper we devise deterministic edge-coloring algorithms that employ only Delta + o(Delta) colors, for a very wide family of graphs. Specifically, as long as the arboricity is a = O(Delta…
The degree splitting problem requires coloring the edges of a graph red or blue such that each node has almost the same number of edges in each color, up to a small additive discrepancy. The directed variant of the problem requires orienting the edges such that each node has almost the same number of incoming and outgoing edges, again up to a small additive discrepancy. We present deterministic distributed algorithms for both variants, which improve on their counterparts presented by Ghaffari and Su [SODA'17]: our algorithms are significantly simpler and faster, and have a much smaller discrep…
In this paper, we propose a high-speed greedy sequential algorithm for the vertex coloring problem (VCP), based on the Wave Function Collapse algorithm, called Wave Function Collapse Coloring (WFC-C). An iteration of this algorithm goes through three distinct phases: vertex selection, color restriction through wave function collapsing, and domain propagation. In effect, WFC-C propagates color choices or "domain" restrictions beyond immediate neighbourhoods. This heuristic, combined with a series of other greedy optimizations, allows for a fast algorithm that prevents certain color conflicts. T…
We devise a new formulation for the vertex coloring problem. Different from other formulations, decision variables are associated with the pairs of vertices. Consequently, colors will be distinguishable. Although the objective function is fractional, it can be replaced by a piece-wise linear convex function. Numerical experiments show that our formulation has significantly good performance for dense graphs.
In this paper we study a problem of vertex two-coloring of undirected graph such that there is no monochromatic cycle of given length. We show that this problem is hard to solve. We give a proof by presenting a reduction from variation of satisfiability (SAT) problem. We show nice properties of coloring cliques with two colors which plays pivotal role in the reduction construction.
The list coloring problem is a variant of vertex coloring where a vertex may be colored only a color from a prescribed set. Several applications of vertex coloring are more appropriately modelled as instances of list coloring and thus we argue that it is an important problem to consider. Regardless of the importance of list coloring, few published algorithms exist for it. In this paper we review the only two existing ones we could find and propose an exact branch and bound one. We conduct an experimental evaluation of the three algorithms.
We design fast dynamic algorithms for proper vertex and edge colorings in a graph undergoing edge insertions and deletions. In the static setting, there are simple linear time algorithms for $(Δ+1)$- vertex coloring and $(2Δ-1)$-edge coloring in a graph with maximum degree $Δ$. It is natural to ask if we can efficiently maintain such colorings in the dynamic setting as well. We get the following three results. (1) We present a randomized algorithm which maintains a $(Δ+1)$-vertex coloring with $O(\log Δ)$ expected amortized update time. (2) We present a deterministic algorithm which maintains …
In the problem of 2-coloring without monochromatic triangles (or triangle-tree 2-coloring), vertices of the simple, connected, undirected graph are colored with either 'black' or 'white' such that there are no 3 mutually adjacent vertices of the same color. In this paper we are positively answering the question posed in our previous work, namely, if there exists an algorithm solving 2-coloring without monochromatic triangles on planar graphs with linear-time complexity.
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…
The computational complexity of the Vertex Coloring problem is known for all hereditary classes of graphs defined by forbidding two connected five-vertex induced subgraphs, except for seven cases. We prove the polynomial-time solvability of four of these problems: for ($P_5$, dart)-free graphs, ($P_5$, banner)-free graphs, ($P_5$, bull)-free graphs, and (fork, bull)-free graphs.
Cographs are exactly the hereditarily well-colored graphs, i.e., the graphs for which a greedy vertex coloring of every induced subgraph uses only the minimally necessary number of colors $χ(G)$. We show that greedy colorings are a special case of the more general hierarchical vertex colorings, which recently were introduced in phylogenetic combinatorics. Replacing cotrees by modular decomposition trees generalizes the concept of hierarchical colorings to arbitrary graphs. We show that every graph has a modularly-minimal coloring $σ$ satisfying $|σ(M)|=χ(M)$ for every strong module $M$ of $G$.…
A recent palette sparsification theorem of Assadi, Chen, and Khanna [SODA'19] states that in every $n$-vertex graph $G$ with maximum degree $Δ$, sampling $O(\log{n})$ colors per each vertex independently from $Δ+1$ colors almost certainly allows for proper coloring of $G$ from the sampled colors. Besides being a combinatorial statement of its own independent interest, this theorem was shown to have various applications to design of algorithms for $(Δ+1)$ coloring in different models of computation on massive graphs such as streaming or sublinear-time algorithms. In this paper, we further study…
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 …
In this paper, we initiate the study of the vertex coloring problem of a graph in the semi streaming model. In this model, the input graph is defined by a stream of edges, arriving in adversarial order and any algorithm must process the edges in the order of arrival using space linear (up to polylogarithmic factors) in the number of vertices of the graph. In the offline settings, there is a simple greedy algorithm for $(Δ+1)$-vertex coloring of a graph with maximum degree $Δ$. We design a one pass randomized streaming algorithm for $(1+\varepsilon)Δ$-vertex coloring problem for any constant $\…
We give deterministic distributed $(1+ε)$-approximation algorithms for Minimum Vertex Coloring and Maximum Independent Set on chordal graphs in the LOCAL model. Our coloring algorithm runs in $O(\frac{1}ε \log n)$ rounds, and our independent set algorithm has a runtime of $O(\frac{1}ε\log(\frac{1}ε)\log^* n)$ rounds. For coloring, existing lower bounds imply that the dependencies on $\frac{1}ε$ and $\log n$ are best possible. For independent set, we prove that $O(\frac{1}ε)$ rounds are necessary. Both our algorithms make use of a tree decomposition of the input chordal graph. They iteratively …
Graph coloring is a fundamental problem in combinatorics with many applications in practice. In this problem, the vertices in a given graph must be colored by using the least number of colors in such a way that a vertex has a different color than its neighbors. The problem, as well as its different variants, has been proven to be NP-Hard. Therefore, there are greedy algorithms in the literature aiming to use a small number of colors. These algorithms traverse the vertices and color them one by one. The vertex visit order has a significant impact on the number of colors used. In this work, we i…
Defective coloring is a variant of traditional vertex-coloring, according to which adjacent vertices are allowed to have the same color, as long as the monochromatic components induced by the corresponding edges have a certain structure. Due to its important applications, as for example in the bipartisation of graphs, this type of coloring has been extensively studied, mainly with respect to the size, degree, and acyclicity of the monochromatic components. In this paper we focus on defective colorings in which the monochromatic components are acyclic and have small diameter, namely, they form …
We study a certain relaxation of the classic vertex coloring problem, namely, a coloring of vertices of undirected, simple graphs, such that there are no monochromatic triangles. We give the first classification of the problem in terms of classic and parametrized algorithms. Several computational complexity results are also presented, which improve on the previous results found in the literature. We propose the new structural parameter for undirected, simple graphs -- the triangle-free chromatic number $χ_3$. We bound $χ_3$ by other known structural parameters. We also present two classes of g…
We study a graph coloring problem that is otherwise easy but becomes quite non-trivial in the one-pass streaming model. In contrast to previous graph coloring problems in streaming that try to find an assignment of colors to vertices, our main work is on estimating the number of conflicting or monochromatic edges given a coloring function that is streaming along with the graph; we call the problem {\sc Conflict-Est}. The coloring function on a vertex can be read or accessed only when the vertex is revealed in the stream. If we need the color on a vertex that has streamed past, then that color,…
Given a graph G and integers b and w. The black-and-white coloring problem asks if there exist disjoint sets of vertices B and W with |B|=b and |W|=w such that no vertex in B is adjacent to any vertex in W. In this paper we show that the problem is polynomial when restricted to permutation graphs.
We give a simpler proof of Seymour's Theorem on edge-coloring series-parallel multigraphs and derive a linear-time algorithm to check whether a given series-parallel multigraph can be colored with a given number of colors.
Any graph with maximum degree $Δ$ admits a proper vertex coloring with $Δ+ 1$ colors that can be found via a simple sequential greedy algorithm in linear time and space. But can one find such a coloring via a sublinear algorithm? We answer this fundamental question in the affirmative for several canonical classes of sublinear algorithms including graph streaming, sublinear time, and massively parallel computation (MPC) algorithms. In particular, we design: * A single-pass semi-streaming algorithm in dynamic streams using $\tilde{O}(n)$ space. The only known semi-streaming algorithm prior to ou…
In a bounded max-coloring of a vertex/edge weighted graph, each color class is of cardinality at most $b$ and of weight equal to the weight of the heaviest vertex/edge in this class. The bounded max-vertex/edge-coloring problems ask for such a coloring minimizing the sum of all color classes' weights. In this paper we present complexity results and approximation algorithms for those problems on general graphs, bipartite graphs and trees. We first show that both problems are polynomial for trees, when the number of colors is fixed, and $H_b$ approximable for general graphs, when the bound $b$ i…
Given a graph $G$ with $n$ vertices and maximum degree $Δ$, it is known that $G$ admits a vertex coloring with $Δ+ 1$ colors such that no edge of $G$ is monochromatic. This can be seen constructively by a simple greedy algorithm, which runs in time $O(nΔ)$. Very recently, a sequence of results (e.g., [Assadi et. al. SODA'19, Bera et. al. ICALP'20, Alon Assadi Approx/Random'20]) show randomized algorithms for $(ε+ 1)Δ$-coloring in the query model making $\tilde{O}(n\sqrt{n})$ queries, improving over the greedy strategy on dense graphs. In addition, a lower bound of $Ω(n\sqrt n)$ for any $O(Δ)$-…
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…
The vertex coloring problem asks for the minimum number of colors that can be assigned to the vertices of a given graph such that for all vertices v the color of v is different from the color of any of its neighbors. The problem is NP-hard. Here, we introduce new integer linear programming formulations based on partial orderings. They have the advantage that they are as simple to work with as the classical assignment formulation, since they can be fed directly into a standard integer linear programming solver. We evaluate our new models using Gurobi and show that our new simple approach is a g…
Graph coloring is a fundamental problem in computer science. We study the fully dynamic version of the problem in which the graph is undergoing edge insertions and deletions and we wish to maintain a vertex-coloring with small update time after each insertion and deletion. We show how to maintain an $O(α\lg n)$-coloring with polylogarithmic update time, where $n$ is the number of vertices in the graph and $α$ is the current arboricity of the graph. This improves upon a result by Solomon and Wein (ESA'18) who maintained an $O(α_{\max}\lg^2 n)$-coloring, where $α_{\max}$ is the maximum arboricit…
Given a vertex-colored graph, we say a path is a rainbow vertex path if all its internal vertices have distinct colors. The graph is rainbow vertex-connected if there is a rainbow vertex path between every pair of its vertices. In the Rainbow Vertex Coloring (RVC) problem we want to decide whether the vertices of a given graph can be colored with at most $k$ colors so that the graph becomes rainbow vertex-connected. This problem is known to be NP-complete even in very restricted scenarios, and very few efficient algorithms are known for it. In this work, we give polynomial-time algorithms for …
Consider the following simple coloring algorithm for a graph on $n$ vertices. Each vertex chooses a color from $\{1, \dotsc, Δ(G) + 1\}$ uniformly at random. While there exists a conflicted vertex choose one such vertex uniformly at random and recolor it with a randomly chosen color. This algorithm was introduced by Bhartia et al. [MOBIHOC'16] for channel selection in WIFI-networks. We show that this algorithm always converges to a proper coloring in expected $O(n \log Δ)$ steps, which is optimal and proves a conjecture of Chakrabarty and Supinski [SOSA'20].
Given a simple undirected graph $G=(V,E)$ and a partition of the vertex set $V$ into $p$ parts, the \textsc{Partition Coloring Problem} asks if we can select one vertex from each part of the partition such that the chromatic number of the subgraph induced on the $p$ selected vertices is bounded by $k$. PCP is a generalized problem of the classical \textsc{Vertex Coloring Problem} and has applications in many areas, such as scheduling and encoding etc. In this paper, we show the complexity status of the \textsc{Partition Coloring Problem} with three parameters: the number of colors, the number …
A method for improving the efficiency of graph isomorphism testing is presented. The method uses the structure of the graph colored by vertex hash codes as a means of partitioning vertices into equivalence classes, which in turn reduces the combinatorial burden of isomorphism testing. Unrolling the graph into a tree at each vertex allows structurally different regular graphs to be discriminated, a capability that the color refinement algorithm cannot do.
We study the problem of transforming one list (vertex) coloring of a graph into another list coloring by changing only one vertex color assignment at a time, while at all times maintaining a list coloring, given a list of allowed colors for each vertex. This problem is known to be PSPACE-complete for bipartite planar graphs. In this paper, we first show that the problem remains PSPACE-complete even for bipartite series-parallel graphs, which form a proper subclass of bipartite planar graphs. We note that our reduction indeed shows the PSPACE-completeness for graphs with pathwidth two, and it c…
We present trade-offs in the incremental and fully dynamic settings to maintian a proper coloring. For any fully dynamic $2$-coloring algorithm, the maximum of the update time, number of recolorings, and query time is $Ω(\log n)$. We present a deterministic fully dynamic $2$-coloring algorithm with $O(\log^2 n)$ amortized update time, $O(\log n)$ amortized query time, and one recoloring in the worst case. For any incremental $2$-coloring algorithm which explicitly maintains the color of every vertex after each update, the amortized update time and the amortized number of recolorings is $Ω(\log…
In this paper we study the oriented vertex and arc coloring problem on edge series-parallel digraphs (esp-digraphs) which are related to the well known series-parallel graphs. Series-parallel graphs are graphs with two distinguished vertices called terminals, formed recursively by parallel and series composition. These graphs have applications in modeling series and parallel electric circuits and also play an important role in theoretical computer science. The oriented class of series-parallel digraphs is recursively defined from pairs of vertices connected by a single arc and applying the par…
Lokshtanov, Marx, and Saurabh SODA 2011 proved that there is no $(k-ε)^{\operatorname{pw}(G)}\operatorname{poly}(n)$ time algorithm for deciding if an $n$-vertex graph $G$ with pathwidth $\operatorname{pw}(G)$ admits a proper vertex coloring with $k$ colors unless the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis (SETH) is false. We show here that nevertheless, when $k>\lfloor Δ/2 \rfloor + 1$, where $Δ$ is the maximum degree in the graph $G$, there is a better algorithm, at least when there are few colorings. We present a Monte Carlo algorithm that given a graph $G$ along with a path decomposition of $G…
We present fixed parameter tractable algorithms for the conflict-free coloring problem on graphs. Given a graph $G=(V,E)$, \emph{conflict-free coloring} of $G$ refers to coloring a subset of $V$ such that for every vertex $v$, there is a color that is assigned to exactly one vertex in the closed neighborhood of $v$. The \emph{k-Conflict-free Coloring} problem is to decide whether $G$ can be conflict-free colored using at most $k$ colors. This problem is NP-hard even for $k=1$ and therefore under standard complexity theoretic assumptions, FPT algorithms do not exist when parameterised by the so…
Given a graph G and integers b and w. The black-and-white coloring problem asks if there exist disjoint sets of vertices B and W with |B|=b and |W|=w such that no vertex in B is adjacent to any vertex in W. In this paper we show that the problem is polynomial when restricted to cographs, distance-hereditary graphs, interval graphs and strongly chordal graphs. We show that the problem is NP-complete on splitgraphs.
In the 1970's, Lovász built a bridge between graphs and alternating matrix spaces, in the context of perfect matchings (FCT 1979). A similar connection between bipartite graphs and matrix spaces plays a key role in the recent resolutions of the non-commutative rank problem (Garg-Gurvits-Oliveira-Wigderson, FOCS 2016; Ivanyos-Qiao-Subrahmanyam, ITCS 2017). In this paper, we lay the foundation for another bridge between graphs and alternating matrix spaces, in the context of independent sets and vertex colorings. The corresponding structures in alternating matrix spaces are isotropic spaces and …
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 …
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 ET…
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…
In 1994, Thomassen proved that every planar graph is 5-list-colorable. In 1995, Thomassen proved that every planar graph of girth at least five is 3-list-colorable. His proofs naturally lead to quadratic-time algorithms to find such colorings. Here, we provide the first such linear-time algorithms to find such colorings. For a fixed surface S, Thomassen showed in 1997 that there exists a linear-time algorithm to decide if a graph embedded in S is 5-colorable and similarly in 2003 if a graph of girth at least five embedded in S is 3-colorable. Using the theory of hyperbolic families, the author…
