The clique chromatic number of a graph is the minimum number of colors required to assign to its vertex set so that no inclusion maximal clique is monochromatic. McDiarmid, Mitsche and Prałat proved that the clique chromatic number of the binomial random graph $G\left(n,\frac{1}{2}\right) $ is at most $\left(\frac{1}{2}+o(1)\right)\log_2n$ with high probability. Alon and Krivelevich showed that it is greater than $\frac{1}{2000}\log_2n$ with high probability and suggested that the right constant in front of the logarithm is $\frac{1}{2}.$ We prove their conjecture and, beyond that, obtain a tight concentration result: whp $χ_c\left(G\left(n,1/2\right)\right) = \frac{1}{2}\log_2 n - Θ\left(\ln\ln n\right).$
In this note, we introduce a new method for constructing graphs with high chromatic number and small clique. Indeed, via this method, we present a new proof for the well-known Kneser's conjecture.
Let $Q(n,c)$ denote the minimum clique number over graphs with $n$ vertices and chromatic number $c$. We determine the rate of growth of of the sequence ${Q(n,\lceil rn \rceil)}_{n=1}^\infty$ for any fixed $0<r\leq 1$. We also give a better upper bound for $Q(n,\lceil rn \rceil)$.
We study graphs whose chromatic number is close to the order of the graph (the number of vertices). Both when the chromatic number is a constant multiple of the order and when the difference of the chromatic number and the order is a small fixed number, large cliques are forced. We study the latter situation, and we give quantitative results how large the clique number of these graphs have to be. Some related questions are discussed and conjectures are posed. Please note that the results of this article were significantly generalized. Therefore this paper will never be published in a journal. …
We prove that every triangle-free graph with maximum degree $Δ$ has list chromatic number at most $(1+o(1))\fracΔ{\ln Δ}$. This matches the best-known bound for graphs of girth at least 5. We also provide a new proof that for any $r\geq 4$ every $K_r$-free graph has list-chromatic number at most $200r\frac{Δ\ln\lnΔ}{\lnΔ}$.
Computing the clique number and chromatic number of a general graph are well-known NP-Hard problems. Codenotti et al. (Bruno Codenotti, Ivan Gerace, and Sebastiano Vigna. Hardness results and spectral techniques for combinatorial problems on circulant graphs. \emph{Linear Algebra Appl.}, 285(1-3): 123--142, 1998) showed that computing clique number and chromatic number are still NP-Hard problems for the class of circulant graphs. We show that computing clique number is NP-Hard for the class of Cayley graphs for the groups $G^n$, where $G$ is any fixed finite group (e.g., cubelike graphs). We a…
We introduce a class of pairs of graphs consisting of two cliques joined by an arbitrary number of edges. The members of a pair have the property that the clique-bridging edge-set of one graph is the complement of that of the other. We prove a precise relation between the chromatic polynomials of the graphs in such a pair, showing that they have the same splitting field, and that the number of acyclic orientations of each graph is determined by the number of proper vertex-colourings of the other.
We study graphon counterparts of the chromatic and the clique number, the fractional chromatic number, the b-chromatic number, and the fractional clique number. We establish some basic properties of the independence set polytope in the graphon setting, and duality properties between the fractional chromatic number and the fractional clique number. We present a notion of perfect graphons and characterize them in terms of induced densities of odd cycles and its complements.
In the way of proving Kneser's conjecture, László Lovász settled out a new lower bound for the chromatic number. He showed that if neighborhood complex $\mathcal{N}(G)$ of a graph $G$ is topologically $k$-connected, then its chromatic number is at least $k+3$. Then he completed his proof by showing that this bound is tight for the Kneser graph. However, there are some graphs where this bound is not useful at all, even comparing by the obvious bound; the clique number. For instance, if a graph contains no complete bipartite graph $\mathcal{K}_{l, m}$, then its Lovász's bound is at most $l+m-1$.…
Building on recent work of Dvořák and Yepremyan, we show that every simple graph of minimum degree $7t+7$ contains $K_t$ as an immersion and that every graph with chromatic number at least $3.54t + 4$ contains $K_t$ as an immersion. We also show that every graph on $n$ vertices with no stable set of size three contains $K_{2\lfloor n/5 \rfloor}$ as an immersion.
In this work, the classical Nelson -- Hadwiger problem is studied which lies on the edge of combinatorial geometry and graph theory. It concerns colorings of distance graphs in $ {\mathbb R}^n $, i.e., graphs such that their vertices are vectors and their edges are pairs of vectors at a distance from a given set of postive numbers apart. A series of new lower bounds are obtained for the chromatic numbers of such graphs with different restrictions on the clique numbers and the girths.
Green showed that there exist constants $C_1,C_2>0$ such that the clique number $ω$ of the random Cayley graph on $\mathbb{F}_2^n$ satisfies $\lim_{n\to\infty}\mathbb{P}(C_1n\log n < ω< C_2n\log n)=1$. In this paper we find the best possible $C_1$ and $C_2$. Moreover, we prove that for $n$ in a set of density $1$, clique number is actually concentrated on a single value. As a simple consequence of these results, we also prove the one-point concentration result for the chromatic number, thus proving the $\mathbb{F}_2^n$ analogue of the famous conjecture by Bollobás and giving almost the complet…
A clique colouring of a graph is a colouring of the vertices such that no maximal clique is monochromatic (ignoring isolated vertices). The least number of colours in such a colouring is the clique chromatic number. Given $n$ points $x_1, \ldots,x_n$ in the plane, and a threshold $r>0$, the corresponding geometric graph has vertex set $\{v_1,\ldots,v_n\}$, and distinct $v_i$ and $v_j$ are adjacent when the Euclidean distance between $x_i$ and $x_j$ is at most $r$. We investigate the clique chromatic number of such graphs. We first show that the clique chromatic number is at most 9 for any geom…
The clique chromatic number of a graph is the minimum number of colours needed to colour its vertices so that no inclusion-wise maximal clique which is not an isolated vertex is monochromatic. We show that every graph of maximum degree $Δ$ has clique chromatic number $O\left(\fracΔ{\log~Δ}\right)$. We obtain as a corollary that every $n$-vertex graph has clique chromatic number $O\left(\sqrt{\frac{n}{\log ~n}}\right)$. Both these results are tight.
The packing chromatic number $χ_ρ(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the smallest integer $k$ such that the vertex set of $G$ can be partitioned into sets $V_i$, $i\in [k]$, where each $V_i$ is an $i$-packing. In this paper, we investigate for a given triple $(a,b,c)$ of positive integers whether there exists a graph $G$ such that $ω(G) = a$, $χ(G) = b$, and $χ_ρ(G) = c$. If so, we say that $(a, b, c)$ is realizable. It is proved that $b=c\ge 3$ implies $a=b$, and that triples $(2,k,k+1)$ and $(2,k,k+2)$ are not realizable as soon as $k\ge 4$. Some of the obtained results are deduced from the bounds proved…
In this paper we obtain some upper bounds for $b$-chromatic number of $K_{1,t}$ -free graphs, graphs with given minimum clique partition and bipartite graphs. These bounds are in terms of either clique number or chromatic number of graphs or biclique number for bipartite graphs. We show that all the bounds are tight.
In 1973 P. Erdős and L. Lovász noticed that any hypergraph whose edges are pairwise intersecting has chromatic number 2 or 3. In the first case, such hypergraph may have any number of edges. However, Erdős and Lovász proved that in the second case, the number of edges is bounded from above. For example, if a hypergraph is $ n $-uniform, has pairwise intersecting edges, and has chromatic number 3, then the number of its edges does not exceed $ n^n $. Recently D.D. Cherkashin improved this bound (see \cite{Ch}). In this paper, we further improve it in the case when the number of vertices of an $…
The clique chromatic number of a graph G=(V,E) is the minimum number of colors in a vertex coloring so that no maximal (with respect to containment) clique is monochromatic. We prove that the clique chromatic number of the binomial random graph G=G(n,1/2) is, with high probability, Ω(log n). This settles a problem of McDiarmid, Mitsche and Pralat who proved that it is O(log n) with high probability.
An \emph{edge coloring} of a graph $G$ is strong if each color class is an induced matching of $G$. The \emph{strong chromatic index} of $G$, denoted by $χ_{s}^{\prime }(G)$, is the minimum number of colors for which $G$ has a strong edge coloring. The strong chromatic index of $G$ is equal to the chromatic number of the square of the line graph of $G$. The chromatic number of the square of the line graph of $G$ is greater than or equal to the clique number of the square of the line graph of $G$, denoted by $ω(L)$. In this note we prove that $ω(L) \le 1.5 Δ_{G}^2$ for every graph $G$. Our resu…
We study a very large family of graphs, the members of which comprise disjoint paths of cliques with extremal cliques identified. This broad characterisation naturally generalises those of various smaller families of graphs having well-known chromatic polynomials. We derive a relatively simple formula for an arbitrary member of the subfamily consisting of those graphs whose constituent clique-paths have at least one trivial extremal clique, and use this formula to show that the set of all non-integer chromatic roots of these graphs is closed under multiplication by natural numbers. A well-know…
For a graph $G$, let $χ(G)$ denote its chromatic number and $σ(G)$ denote the order of the largest clique subdivision in $G$. Let H(n) be the maximum of $χ(G)/σ(G)$ over all $n$-vertex graphs $G$. A famous conjecture of Hajós from 1961 states that $σ(G) \geq χ(G)$ for every graph $G$. That is, $H(n) \leq 1$ for all positive integers $n$. This conjecture was disproved by Catlin in 1979. Erdős and Fajtlowicz further showed by considering a random graph that $H(n) \geq cn^{1/2}/\log n$ for some absolute constant $c>0$. In 1981 they conjectured that this bound is tight up to a constant factor in t…
A connected $t$-chromatic graph $G$ is \dfn{double-critical} if $G \backslash\{u, v\}$ is $(t-2)$-colorable for each edge $uv\in E(G)$. A long standing conjecture of Erdős and Lovász that the complete graphs are the only double-critical $t$-chromatic graphs remains open for all $t\ge6$. Given the difficulty in settling Erdős and Lovász's conjecture and motivated by the well-known Hadwiger's conjecture, Kawarabayashi, Pedersen and Toft proposed a weaker conjecture that every double-critical $t$-chromatic graph contains a $K_t$ minor and verified their conjecture for $t\le7$. Albar and Gonçalves…
A clique colouring of a graph is a colouring of the vertices so that no maximal clique is monochromatic (ignoring isolated vertices). The smallest number of colours in such a colouring is the clique chromatic number. In this paper, we study the asymptotic behaviour of the clique chromatic number of the random graph G(n,p) for a wide range of edge-probabilities p=p(n). We see that the typical clique chromatic number, as a function of the average degree, forms an intriguing step function.
The greedy coloring algorithm shows that a graph of maximum degree at most $Δ$ has chromatic number at most $Δ+ 1$, and this is tight for cliques. Much attention has been devoted to improving this "greedy bound" for graphs without large cliques. Brooks famously proved that this bound can be improved by one if $Δ\geq 3$ and the graph contains no clique of size $Δ+ 1$. Reed's Conjecture states that the "greedy bound" can be improved by $k$ if the graph contains no clique of size $Δ+ 1 - 2k$. Johansson proved that the "greedy bound" can be improved by a factor of $Ω(\ln(Δ)^{-1})$ or $Ω\left(\frac…
The notion of the circular coloring of signed graphs is a recent one that simultaneously extends both notions of the circular coloring of graphs and $0$-free coloring of signed graphs. A circular $r$-coloring of a signed graph $(G, σ)$ is to assign points of a circle of circumference $r$, $r\geq 2$, to the vertices of $G$ such that vertices connected by a positive edge are at circular distance at least $1$ and vertices connected by a negative edge are at circular distance at most $\frac{r}{2}-1$. The infimum of all $r$ for which $(G, σ)$ admits a circular $r$-coloring is said to be the circula…
Given a graphic degree sequence $D$, let $χ(D)$ (respectively $ω(D)$, $h(D)$, and $H(D)$) denote the maximum value of the chromatic number (respectively, the size of the largest clique, largest clique subdivision, and largest clique minor) taken over all simple graphs whose degree sequence is $D$. It is proved that $χ(D)\le h(D)$. Moreover, it is shown that a subdivision of a clique of order $χ(D)$ exists where each edge is subdivided at most once and the set of all subdivided edges forms a collection of disjoint stars. This bound is an analogue of the Hajos Conjecture for degree sequences and…
Gyarfas conjectured in 1985 that for all $k$, $l$, every graph with no clique of size more than $k$ and no odd hole of length more than $l$ has chromatic number bounded by a function of $k$ and $l$. We prove three weaker statements: (1) Every triangle-free graph with sufficiently large chromatic number has an odd hole of length different from five; (2) For all $l$, every triangle-free graph with sufficiently large chromatic number contains either a 5-hole or an odd hole of length more than $l$; (3) For all $k$, $l$, every graph with no clique of size more than $k$ and sufficiently large chroma…
We consider the structure of $H$-free subgraphs of graphs with high minimal degree. We prove that for every $k>m$ there exists an $ε:=ε(k,m)>0$ so that the following holds. For every graph $H$ with chromatic number $k$ from which one can delete an edge and reduce the chromatic number, and for every graph $G$ on $n>n_0(H)$ vertices in which all degrees are at least $(1-ε)n$, any subgraph of $G$ which is $H$-free and contains the maximum number of copies of the complete graph $K_m$ is $(k-1)$-colorable. We also consider several extensions for the case of a general forbidden graph $H$ of a given …
We prove a conjecture of Andras Gyarfas, that for all k,t, every graph with clique number at most k and sufficiently large chromatic number has an odd hole of length at least t.
Let $ H = (V,E) $ be a hypergraph. By the chromatic number of a hypergraph $ H = (V,E) $ we mean the minimum number $χ(H)$ of colors needed to paint all the vertices in $ V $ so that any edge $ e \in E $ contains at least two vertices of some different colors. Finally, a hypergraph is said to form a clique, if its edges are pairwise intersecting. In 1973 Erdős and Lovász noticed that if an $n$-uniform hypergraph $ H = (V,E) $ forms a clique, then $ χ(H) \in \{2,3\} $. They untoduced following quantity. $$ M(n) = \max \{|E|: \exists {\rm an} n-{\rm uniform} {\rm clique} H = (V,E) {\rm with} χ(H…
Let $G$ be a claw-free graph on $n$ vertices with clique number $ω$, and consider the chromatic number $χ(G^2)$ of the square $G^2$ of $G$. Writing $χ'_s(d)$ for the supremum of $χ(L^2)$ over the line graphs $L$ of simple graphs of maximum degree at most $d$, we prove that $χ(G^2)\le χ'_s(ω)$ for $ω\in \{3,4\}$. For $ω=3$, this implies the sharp bound $χ(G^2) \leq 10$. For $ω=4$, this implies $χ(G^2)\leq 22$, which is within $2$ of the conjectured best bound. This work is motivated by a strengthened form of a conjecture of Erdős and Nešetřil.
Let Q(n,c) denote the minimum clique size an n-vertex graph can have if its chromatic number is c. Using Ramsey graphs we give an exact, albeit implicit, formula for the case c is at least (n+3)/2.
A hole in a graph $G$ is an induced cycle of length at least four, and a $k$-multihole in $G$ is a set of pairwise disjoint and nonadjacent holes. It is well known that if $G$ does not contain any holes then its chromatic number is equal to its clique number. In this paper we show that, for any $k$, if $G$ does not contain a $k$-multihole, then its chromatic number is at most a polynomial function of its clique number. We show that the same result holds if we ask for all the holes to be odd or of length four; and if we ask for the holes to be longer than any fixed constant or of length four. 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…
Here we prove that a graph without some three induced subgraphs has chromatic number at the most equal to its maximum clique size plus one. Further we show that the bounds are tight and give examples to show that each of the three forbidden subgraphs is necessary in the hypothesis.
Problem of finding an optimal upper bound for a chromatic no. of 3K1-free graphs is still open and pretty hard. Here we find a tight chromatic upper bound for {3K1, C5}-free graphs. We prove that if G is {3K1, C5}-free, then the chromatic no. <= (3ω-1)/2 where ω is the size of a maximum clique in G and show with examples that the bound is tight.
Although the chromatic number of a graph is not known in general, attempts have been made to find good bounds for the number. Here we prove that for a graph G with two forbidden subgraphs and maximum degree less than or equal to 2ω - 3, χ equals its maximum clique size. We also give examples to show that the condition is necessary.
The {\em chromatic gap} is the difference between the chromatic number and the clique number of a graph. Here we investigate $\gap(n)$, the maximum chromatic gap over graphs on $n$ vertices. Can the extremal graphs be explored? While computational problems related to the chromatic gap are hopeless, an interplay between Ramsey theory and matching theory leads to a simple and (almost) exact formula for $\gap(n)$ in terms of Ramsey numbers.
Problem of finding an optimal upper bound for the chromatic no. of 3K1-free graphs is still open and pretty hard. It was proved by Choudum et al that an upper bound on the chromatic no. of {3K1, K1+C4}-free graphs, is 2ω. We improve this by proving that if G is {3K1, K1+C4}-free, then its chromatic no. is less than or equal to 3ω divided by 2, where ω is the size of a maximum clique in G. Also we give examples to show that this bound is tight.
Beginning with the concepts of orientation for a 3-hypergraph and transitivity for an oriented 3-hypergraph, it is natural to study the class of comparability 3-hypergraphs (those that can be transitively oriented). In this work we show three different behaviors in respect to the relationship between the chromatic number and the clique number of a comparability 3-hypergraph, this is in contrast with the fact that a comparability simple graph is a perfect graph.
Vertex coloring of a graph $G$ with $n$-colors can be equivalently thought to be a graph homomorphism (edge preserving vertex mapping) of $G$ to the complete graph $K_n$ of order $n$. So, in that sense, the chromatic number $χ(G)$ of $G$ will be the order of the smallest complete graph to which $G$ admits a homomorphism to. As every graph, which is not a complete graph, admits a homomorphism to a smaller complete graph, we can redefine the chromatic number $χ(G)$ of $G$ to be the order of the smallest graph to which $G$ admits a homomorphism to. Of course, such a smallest graph must be a compl…
The Gyárfás-Sumner conjecture says that for every forest $H$ and every integer $k$, if $G$ is $H$-free and does not contain a clique on $k$ vertices then it has bounded chromatic number. (A graph is $H$-free if it does not contain an induced copy of $H$.) Kierstead and Penrice proved it for trees of radius at most two, but otherwise the conjecture is known only for a few simple types of forest. More is known if we exclude a complete bipartite subgraph instead of a clique: Rödl showed that, for every forest $H$, if $G$ is $H$-free and does not contain $K_{t,t}$ as a subgraph then it has bounded…
We investigate the effect of a fixed forbidden clique minor upon the strong chromatic index, both in multigraphs and in simple graphs. We conjecture for each $k\ge 4$ that any $K_k$-minor-free multigraph of maximum degree $Δ$ has strong chromatic index at most $\frac32(k-2)Δ$. We present a construction certifying that if true the conjecture is asymptotically sharp as $Δ\to\infty$. In support of the conjecture, we show it in the case $k=4$ and prove the statement for strong clique number in place of strong chromatic index. By contrast, we make a basic observation that for $K_k$-minor-free simpl…
A double star is a tree with two internal vertices. It is known that the Gyárfás-Sumner conjecture holds for double stars, that is, for every double star $H$, there is a function $f$ such that if $G$ does not contain $H$ as an induced subgraph then $χ(G)\le f(ω(G))$ (where $χ, ω$ are the chromatic number and the clique number of $G$). Here we prove that $f$ can be chosen to be a polynomial.
It is known that every graph of sufficiently large chromatic number and bounded clique number contains, as an induced subgraph, a subdivision of any fixed forest, and a subdivision of any fixed cycle. Equivalently, forests and triangles are pervasive, where H is pervasive (in some class of graphs) if for all s>0, every graph in the class with bounded clique number and sufficiently large chromatic number contains an induced subdivision of H, with every edge subdivided at least s times. Which other graphs are pervasive? Chalopin, Esperet, Li and Ossona de Mendez proved that every such graph is a…
