We show that any proper coloring of a Kneser graph $KG_{n,k}$ with $n-2k+2$ colors contains a trivial color (i.e., a color consisting of sets that all contain a fixed element), provided $n>(2+\varepsilon)k^2$, where $\varepsilon\to 0$ as $k\to \infty$. This bound is essentially tight. This is a consequence of a more general result on the minimum number of non-trivial colors needed to properly color $KG_{n,k}$.
A fall coloring of a graph G is a proper coloring of G with k colors such that each vertex sees all k colors on its closed neighborhood. In this short note, we characterize all fall colorings of Kneser graphs of type KG(n,2).
In this short note, the purpose is to provide an upper bound for the b-chromatic number of Kneser graphs. Our bound improves the upper bound that was presented by Balakrishnan and Kavaskar in [b-coloring of Kneser graphs, Discrete Appl. Math. 160 (2012), 9-14].
We suggest a new method on coloring generalized Kneser graphs based on hypergraphs with high discrepancy and small number of edges. The main result is providing a proper coloring of K(n, n/2-t, s) in (4 + o(1))(s + t)^2 colors, which is produced by Hadamard matrices. Also, we show that for colorings by independent set of a natural type, this result is the best possible up to a multiplicative constant. Our method extends to Kneser hypergraphs as well.
A family of sets is called star-shaped if all the members of the family have a point in common. The main aim of this paper is to provide a negative answer to the following question raised by James Aisenberg et al [Short proofs of the kneser-Lovasz coloring principle, Information and Computation, 261:296-310, 2018.], for the case k=2.
The Kneser conjecture (1955) was proved by Lovász (1978) using the Borsuk-Ulam theorem; all subsequent proofs, extensions and generalizations also relied on Algebraic Topology results, namely the Borsuk-Ulam theorem and its extensions. Only in 2000, Matoušek provided the first combinatorial proof of the Kneser conjecture. Here we provide a hypergraph coloring theorem, with a combinatorial proof, which has as special cases the Kneser conjecture as well as its extensions and generalization by (hyper)graph coloring theorems of Dol'nikov, Alon-Frankl-Lovász, Sarkaria, and Kriz. We also give a comb…
A proper edge coloring of a graph is strong if it creates no bichromatic path of length three. It is well known that for a strong edge coloring of a $k$-regular graph at least $2k-1$ colors are needed. We show that a $k$-regular graph admits a strong edge coloring with $2k-1$ colors if and only if it covers the Kneser graph $K(2k-1,k-1)$. In particular, a cubic graph is strongly $5$-edge-colorable whenever it covers the Petersen graph. One of the implications of this result is that a conjecture about strong edge colorings of subcubic graphs proposed by Faudree et al. [Ars Combin. 29 B (1990), …
More than 50 years ago Hedetniemi conjectured that the chromatic number of categorical product of two graphs is equal to the minimum of their chromatic numbers. This conjecture has received a considerable attention in recent years. Hedetniemi's conjecture were generalized to hypergraphs by Zhu in 1992. Hajiabolhassan and Meunier (2016) introduced the first nontrivial lower bound for the chromatic number of categorical product of general Kneser hypergraphs and using this lower bound, they verified Zhu's conjecture for some families of hypergraphs. In this paper, we shall present some colorful t…
Complete colorings have the property that any two color classes has at least an edge between them. Parameters such as the Grundy, achromatic and pseudoachromatic numbers comes from complete colorings, with some additional requirement. In this paper, we estimate these numbers in the Kneser graph $K(n,k)$ for some values of $n$ and $k$. We give the exact value of the achromatic number of $K(n,2)$.
We investigate some coloring properties of Kneser graphs. A star-free coloring is a proper coloring $c:V(G)\to \Bbb{N}$ such that no path with three vertices may be colored with just two consecutive numbers. The minimum positive integer $t$ for which there exists a star-free coloring $c: V(G) \to \{1,2,..., t\}$ is called the star-free chromatic number of $G$ and denoted by $χ_s(G)$. In view of Tucker-Ky Fan's lemma, we show that for any Kneser graph ${\rm KG}(n,k)$ we have $χ_s({\rm KG}(n,k))\geq \max\{2χ({\rm KG}(n,k))-10, χ({\rm KG}(n,k))\}$ where $n\geq 2k \geq 4$. Moreover, we show that $…
For fixed positive integers $r, k$ and $\ell$ with $1 \leq \ell < r$ and an $r$-uniform hypergraph $H$, let $κ(H, k,\ell)$ denote the number of $k$-colorings of the set of hyperedges of $H$ for which any two hyperedges in the same color class intersect in at least $\ell$ elements. Consider the function $\KC(n,r,k,\ell)=\max_{H\in{\mathcal H}_{n}} κ(H, k,\ell) $, where the maximum runs over the family ${\mathcal H}_n$ of all $r$-uniform hypergraphs on $n$ vertices. In this paper, we determine the asymptotic behavior of the function $\KC(n,r,k,\ell)$ for every fixed $r$, $k$ and $\ell$ and descr…
In Ziegler (2002), the second author presented a lower bound for the chromatic numbers of hypergraphs $\KG{r}{\pmb s}{\calS}$, "generalized $r$-uniform Kneser hypergraphs with intersection multiplicities $\pmb s$." It generalized previous lower bounds by Kriz (1992/2000) for the case ${\pmb s}=(1,...,1)$ without intersection multiplicities, and by Sarkaria (1990) for $\calS=\tbinom{[n]}k$. Here we discuss subtleties and difficulties that arise for intersection multiplicities $s_i>1$: 1. In the presence of intersection multiplicities, there are two different versions of a "Kneser hypergraph," d…
Using a $Z_q$-generalization of a theorem of Ky Fan, we extend to Kneser hypergraphs a theorem of Simonyi and Tardos that ensures the existence of multicolored complete bipartite graphs in any proper coloring of a Kneser graph. It allows to derive a lower bound for the local chromatic number of Kneser hypergraphs (using a natural definition of what can be the local chromatic number of a hypergraph).
The Kneser graph $K(n,k)$ is the graph whose vertices are the $k$-element subsets of an $n$ elements set, with two vertices adjacent if they are disjoint. The square $G^2$ of a graph $G$ is the graph defined on $V(G)$ such that two vertices $u$ and $v$ are adjacent in $G^2$ if the distance between $u$ and $v$ in $G$ is at most 2. Determining the chromatic number of the square of the Kneser graph $K(n, k)$ is an interesting graph coloring problem, and is also related with intersecting family problem. The square of $K(2k, k)$ is a perfect matching and the square of $K(n, k)$ is the complete grap…
In an undirected graph, a conflict-free coloring (with respect to open neighborhoods) is an assignment of colors to the vertices of the graph $G$ such that every vertex in $G$ has a uniquely colored vertex in its open neighborhood. The conflict-free coloring problem asks to find the smallest number of colors required for a conflict-free coloring. The conflict-free coloring problem is NP-complete. From results in Abel et. al. [SODA 2017], it can be inferred that every planar graph has a conflict-free coloring with at most nine colors. As the best known lower bound for planar graphs is four colo…
In this paper, we will introduce an special kind of graph homomorphisms namely semi-locally-surjective graph homomorphisms and show some relations between semi-locally-surjective graph homomorphisms and colorful colorings of graphs and then we prove that for each natural number $k$, the Kneser graph $KG(2k+1,k)$ is $b$-continuous. Finally, we introduce some special conditions for graphs to be $b$-continuous.
Let $c$ be a proper $k$-coloring of a connected graph $G$ and $Π=(C_1,C_2,...,C_k)$ be an ordered partition of $V(G)$ into the resulting color classes. For a vertex $v$ of $G$, the color code of $v$ with respect to $Π$ is defined to be the ordered $k$-tuple $$c_{{}_Π}(v):=(d(v,C_1),d(v,C_2),...,d(v,C_k)),$$ where $d(v,C_i)=\min\{d(v,x) |x\in C_i\}, 1\leq i\leq k$. If distinct vertices have distinct color codes, then $c$ is called a locating coloring. The minimum number of colors needed in a locating coloring of $G$ is the locating chromatic number of $G$, denoted by $\Cchi_{{}_L}(G)$. In this …
In this paper, we investigate circular chromatic number of Mycielski construction of graphs. It was shown in \cite{MR2279672} that $t^{\rm th}$ Mycielskian of the Kneser graph $KG(m,n)$ has the same circular chromatic number and chromatic number provided that $m+t$ is an even integer. We prove that if $m$ is large enough, then $χ(M^t(KG(m,n)))=χ_c(M^t(KG(m,n)))$ where $M^t$ is $t^{\rm th}$ Mycielskian. Also, we consider the generalized Kneser graph $KG(m,n,s)$ and show that there exists a threshold $m(n,s,t)$ such that $χ(M^t(KG(m,n,s)))=χ_c(M^t(KG(m,n,s)))$ for $m\geq m(n,s,t)$.
We determine the chromatic number of the Kneser graph qΓ_{7,{3,4}} of flags of vectorial type {3, 4} of a rank 7 vector space over the finite field GF(q) for large q and describe the colorings that attain the bound. This result relies heavily, not only on the independence number, but also on the structure of all large independent sets. Furthermore, our proof is more general in the following sense: it provides the chromatic number of the Kneser graphs qΓ_{2d+1,{d,d+1}} of flags of vectorial type {d, d+1} of a rank 2d+1 vector space over GF(q) for large q as long as the large independent sets of…
Investigating the equality of the chromatic number and the circular chromatic number of graphs has been an active stream of research for last decades. In this regard, Habolhassan and Zhu [Circular chromatic number of Kneser graphs, Journal of Combinatorial Theory Series B, 2003] proved that if $n$ is sufficiently large with respect to $k$, then the Schrijver graph ${\rm SG}(n,k)$ has the same chromatic and circular chromatic number. Later, Meunier [A topological lower bound for the circular chromatic number of Schrijver graphs, Journal of Graph Theory, 2005] and independently, Simonyi and Tard…
A graph $G$ is said to be $k$-distinguishable if the vertex set can be colored using $k$ colors such that no non-trivial automorphism fixes every color class, and the distinguishing number $D(G)$ is the least integer $k$ for which $G$ is $k$-distinguishable. If for each $v\in V(G)$ we have a list $L(v)$ of colors, and we stipulate that the color assigned to vertex $v$ comes from its list $L(v)$ then $G$ is said to be $\mathcal{L}$-distinguishable where $\mathcal{L} =\{L(v)\}_{v\in V(G)}$. The list distinguishing number of a graph, denoted $D_l(G)$, is the minimum integer $k$ such that every co…
Our purpose is to show that complements of line graphs enjoy nice coloring properties. We show that for all graphs in this class the local and usual chromatic numbers are equal. We also prove a sufficient condition for the chromatic number to be equal to a natural upper bound. A consequence of this latter condition is a complete characterization of all induced subgraphs of the Kneser graph $\operatorname{KG}(n,2)$ that have a chromatic number equal to its chromatic number, namely $n-2$. In addition to the upper bound, a lower bound is provided by Dol'nikov's theorem, a classical result of the …
Recently, Kupavskii~[{\it On random subgraphs of {K}neser and {S}chrijver graphs. J. Combin. Theory Ser. A, {\rm 2016}.}] investigated the chromatic number of random Kneser graphs $\KG_{n,k}(ρ)$ and proved that, in many cases, the chromatic numbers of the random Kneser graph $\KG_{n,k}(ρ)$ and the Kneser graph $\KG_{n,k}$ are almost surely closed. He also marked the studying of the chromatic number of random Kneser hypergraphs $\KG^r_{n,k}(ρ)$ as a very interesting problem. With the help of $\Z_p$-Tucker lemma, a combinatorial generalization of the Borsuk-Ulam theorem, we generalize Kupavskii'…
The local chromatic number of a graph was introduced by Erdos et al. in 1986. It is in between the chromatic and fractional chromatic numbers. This motivates the study of the local chromatic number of graphs for which these quantities are far apart. Such graphs include Kneser graphs, their vertex color-critical subgraphs, the Schrijver (or stable Kneser) graphs; Mycielski graphs, and their generalizations; and Borsuk graphs. We give more or less tight bounds for the local chromatic number of many of these graphs. We use an old topological result of Ky Fan which generalizes the Borsuk-Ulam theo…
In 2011, Meunier conjectured that for positive integers $n,k,r,s$ with $ k\geq 2$, $r\geq 2$, and $n\geq \max (\{r,s\})k$, the chromatic number of $s$ -stable $r$-uniform Kneser hypergraphs is equal to $\left\lceil \frac{n-\max (\{r,s\})(k-1)}{r-1}\right\rceil $. It is a strengthened version of the conjecture proposed by Ziegler (2002), and Alon, Drewnowski and Łuczak (2009). The problem about the chromatic number of almost $s$-stable $r$ -uniform Kneser hypergraphs has also been introduced by Meunier (2011). For the $r=2$ case of the Meunier conjecture, Jonsson (2012) provided a purely combin…
In this paper we study the existence of homomorphisms $G\to H$ using semidefinite programming. Specifically, we use the vector chromatic number of a graph, defined as the smallest real number $t \ge 2$ for which there exists an assignment of unit vectors $i\mapsto p_i$ to its vertices such that $\langle p_i, p_j\rangle\le -1/(t-1),$ when $i\sim j$. Our approach allows to reprove, without using the Erdős-Ko-Rado Theorem, that for $n>2r$ the Kneser graph $K_{n:r}$ and the $q$-Kneser graph $qK_{n:r}$ are cores, and furthermore, that for $n/r = n'/r'$ there exists a homomorphism $K_{n:r}\to K_{n':…
In this paper, in view of $Z_p$-Tucker lemma, we introduce a lower bound for chromatic number of Kneser hypergraphs which improves Dol'nikov-K{ř}{\'ı}{ž} bound. Next, we introduce multiple Kneser hypergraphs and we specify the chromatic number of some multiple Kneser hypergraphs. For a vector of positive integers $\vec{s}=(s_1,s_2,\ldots,s_m)$ and a partition $π=(P_1,P_2,\ldots,P_m)$ of $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$, the multiple Kneser hypergraph ${\rm KG}^r(π; \vec{s};k)$ is a hypergraph with the vertex set $$V=\left\{A:\ A\subseteq P_1\cup P_2\cup\cdots \cup P_m,\ |A|=k, \forall 1\leq i\leq m;\ |A\cap…
In this paper, some results concerning the colorings of graph powers are presented. The notion of helical graphs is introduced. We show that such graphs are hom-universal with respect to high odd-girth graphs whose $(2t+1)$st power is bounded by a Kneser graph. Also, we consider the problem of existence of homomorphism to odd cycles. We prove that such homomorphism to a $(2k+1)$-cycle exists if and only if the chromatic number of the $(2k+1)$st power of $S_2(G)$ is less than or equal to 3, where $S_2(G)$ is the 2-subdivision of $G$. We also consider Nešetřil's Pentagon problem. This problem is…
An embedding $i \mapsto p_i\in \mathbb{R}^d$ of the vertices of a graph $G$ is called universally completable if the following holds: For any other embedding $i\mapsto q_i~\in \mathbb{R}^{k}$ satisfying $q_i^T q_j = p_i^T p_j$ for $i = j$ and $i$ adjacent to $j$, there exists an isometry mapping the $q_i$'s to the $p_i$'s for all $ i\in V(G)$. The notion of universal completability was introduced recently due to its relevance to the positive semidefinite matrix completion problem. In this work we focus on graph embeddings constructed using the eigenvectors of the least eigenvalue of the adjace…
One of the most famous conjecture in graph theory is Hedetniemi's conjecture stating that the chromatic number of the categorical product of graphs is the minimum of their chromatic numbers. Using a suitable extension of the definition of the categorical product, Zhu proposed in 1992 a similar conjecture for hypergraphs. We prove that Zhu's conjecture is true for the usual Kneser hypergraphs of same rank. It provides to the best of our knowledge the first non-trivial and explicit family of hypergraphs with rank larger than two satisfying this conjecture (the rank two case being Hedetniemi's co…
A set $D$ of vertices of a graph $G$ is a dissociation set if each vertex of $D$ has at most one neighbor in $D$. The dissociation number of $G$, $diss(G)$, is the cardinality of a maximum dissociation set in a graph $G$. In this paper we study dissociation in the well-known class of Kneser graphs $K_{n,k}$. In particular, we establish that the dissociation number of Kneser graphs $K_{n,2}$ equals $\max{\{n-1,6\}}$. We show that for any $k \geq 2$, there exists $n_0 \in \mathbb{N}$ such that $diss(K_{n,k})=α(K_{n,k})$ for any $n \geq n_0$. We consider the case $k=3$ in more details and prove t…
A vertex coloring of a graph $G$ is called distinguishing (or symmetry breaking) if no non-identity automorphism of $G$ preserves it, and the distinguishing number, shown by $D(G)$, is the smallest number of colors required for such a coloring. This paper is about counting non-equivalent distinguishing colorings of graphs with $k$ colors. A parameter, namely $Φ_k (G)$, which is the number of non-equivalent distinguishing colorings of a graph $G$ with at most $k$ colors, is shown here to have an application in calculating the distinguishing number of the lexicographic product and the $X$-join o…
We consider circular version of the famous Nelson-Hadwiger problem. It is know that 4 colors are necessary and 7 colors suffice to color the euclidean plane in such a way that points at distance one get different colors. In $r$-circular coloring we assign arcs of length one of a circle with a perimeter $r$ in such a way that points at distance one get disjoint arcs. In this paper we show the existence of $r$-circular coloring for $r=4+\frac{4\sqrt{3}}{3}\approx 6.30$. It is the first result with $r$-circular coloring of the plane with $r$ smaller than 7. We also show $r$-circular coloring of t…
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…
The distinguishing index $D'(Γ)$ of a graph $Γ$ is the least number $k$ such that $Γ$ has an edge-coloring with $k$ colors preserved only by the trivial automorphism. In this paper we prove that if the automorphism group of a finite graph $Γ$ is simple, then its distinguishing index $D'(Γ)=2$.
Given a graph property $\mathcal{P}$, F. Harary introduced in 1985 $\mathcal{P}$-colorings, graph colorings where each colorclass induces a graph in $\mathcal{P}$. Let $χ_{\mathcal{P}}(G;k)$ counts the number of $\mathcal{P}$-colorings of $G$ with at most $k$ colors. It turns out that $χ_{\mathcal{P}}(G;k)$ is a polynomial in $\mathbb{Z}[k]$ for each graph $G$. Graph polynomials of this form are called Harary polynomials. In this paper we investigate properties of Harary polynomials and compare them with properties of the classical chromatic polynomial $χ(G;k)$. We show that the characteristic…
We show that the edges of every 3-connected planar graph except $K_4$ can be colored with two colors in such a way that the graph has no color preserving automorphisms. Also, we characterize all graphs which have the property that their edges can be $2$-colored so that no matter how the graph is embedded in any orientable surface, there is no homeomorphism of the surface which induces a non-trivial color preserving automorphism of the graph.
A colouring of a graph G is called distinguishing if its stabiliser in Aut G is trivial. It has been conjectured that, if every automorphism of a locally finite graph moves infinitely many vertices, then there is a distinguishing 2-colouring. We study properties of random 2-colourings of locally finite graphs and show that the stabiliser of such a colouring is almost surely nowhere dense in Aut G and a null set with respect to the Haar measure on the automorphism group. We also investigate random 2-colourings in several classes of locally finite graphs where the existence of a distinguishing 2…
A vertex coloring $ϕ$ of a graph $G$ is $p$-centered if for every connected subgraph $H$ of $G$ either $ϕ$ uses more than $p$ colors on $H$ or there is a color that appears exactly once on $H$. Centered colorings form one of the families of parameters that allow to capture notions of sparsity of graphs: A class of graphs has bounded expansion if and only if there is a function $f$ such that for every $p\geq1$, every graph in the class admits a $p$-centered coloring using at most $f(p)$ colors. In this paper, we give upper bounds for the maximum number of colors needed in a $p$-centered colorin…
The regular graph of ideals of the commutative ring $R$, denoted by $Γ_{reg}(R)$, is a graph whose vertex set is the set of all non-trivial ideals of $R$ and two distinct vertices $I$ and $J$ are adjacent if and only if either $I$ contains a $J$-regular element or $J$ contains an $I$-regular element. In this paper, it is shown that for every Artinian ring $R$, the edge chromatic number of $Γ_{reg}(R)$ equals its maximum degree. Then a formula for the clique number of $Γ_{reg}(R)$ is given. Also, it is proved that for every reduced ring $R$ with $n(\geq3)$ minimal prime ideals, the edge chromat…
A Gallai coloring is a coloring of the edges of a complete graph without rainbow triangles, and a Gallai $k$-coloring is a Gallai coloring that uses $k$ colors. We study Ramsey-type problems in Gallai colorings. Given an integer $k\ge1$ and a graph $H$, the Gallai-Ramsey number $GR_k(H)$ is the least positive integer $n$ such that every Gallai $k$-coloring of the complete graph on $n$ vertices contains a monochromatic copy of $H$. It turns out that $GR_k(H)$ is more well-behaved than the classical Ramsey number $R_k(H)$. However, finding exact values of $GR_k (H)$ is far from trivial. In this …
We generalize proper coloring of gain graphs to totally frustrated states, where each vertex takes a value in a set of `qualities' or `spins' that is permuted by the gain group. (An example is the Potts model.) The number of totally frustrated states satisfies the usual deletion-contraction law but is matroidal only for standard coloring, where the group action is trivial or nearly regular. One can generalize chromatic polynomials by constructing spin sets with repeated transitive components.
Periodic colorings and orientations in infinite graphs
University of Hamburg（汉堡大学）；Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Laboratoire G-SCOP（格勒诺布尔阿尔卑斯大学，法国国家科学研究中心，G-SCOP实验室）；Theoretical Computer Science Department, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Jagiellonian University（雅盖隆大学数学与计算机科学学院理论计算机科学系）；Science Institute, University of Iceland（冰岛大学科学研究所）
