For a graph with colored vertices, a rainbow subgraph is one where all vertices have different colors. For graph $G$, let $c_k(G)$ denote the maximum number of different colors in a coloring without a rainbow path on $k$ vertices, and $cp_k(G)$ the maximum number of colors if the coloring is required to be proper. The parameter $c_3$ has been studied by multiple authors. We investigate these parameters for trees and $k \ge 4$. We first calculate them when $G$ is a path, and determine when the optimal coloring is unique. Then for trees $T$ of order $n$, we show that the minimum value of $c_4(T)$ and $cp_4(T)$ is $(n+2)/2$, and the trees with the minimum value of $cp_4(T)$ are the coronas. Further, the minimum value of $c_5(T)$ and $cp_5(T)$ is $(n+3)/2$ , and the trees with the minimum value of either parameter are octopuses.
A 3-coloring of the elements of an abelian group is said to be rainbow--free if there is no 3-term arithmetic progression with its members having pairwise distinct colors. We give a structural characterization of rainbow--free colorings of abelian groups. This characterization proves a conjecture of Jungić et al. on the size of the smallest chromatic class of a rainbow-free 3-coloring of cyclic groups.
In this paper, we study the rainbow Erdős-Rothschild problem with respect to 3-term arithmetic progressions. We obtain the asymptotic number of $r$-colorings of $[n]$ without rainbow 3-term arithmetic progressions, and we show that the typical colorings with this property are 2-colorings. We also prove that $[n]$ attains the maximum number of rainbow 3-term arithmetic progression-free $r$-colorings among all subsets of $[n]$. Moreover, the exact number of rainbow 3-term arithmetic progression-free $r$-colorings of $\mathbb{Z}_p$ is obtained, where $p$ is any prime and $\mathbb{Z}_p$ is the cyc…
Let p be a prime number and Zp be the cyclic group of order p. A coloring of Zp is called rainbow-free with respect to a certain equation, if it contains no rainbow solution of the same, that is, a solution whose elements have pairwise distinct colors. In this paper we describe the structure of rainbow-free 3-colorings of Zp with respect to all linear equations on three variables. Consequently, we determine those linear equations on three variables for which every 3-coloring (with nonempty color classes) of Zp contains a rainbow solution of it.
This paper investigates vertex colorings of graphs such that some rainbow subgraph~$R$ and some monochromatic subgraph $M$ are forbidden. Previous work focussed on the case that $R=M$. Here we consider the more general case, especially the case that $M=K_2$.
A balanced edge-coloring of the complete graph is an edge-coloring such that every vertex is incident to each color the same number of times. In this short note, we present a construction of a balanced edge-coloring with six colors of the complete graph on $n=13^k$ vertices, for every positive integer $k$, with no rainbow $K_4$. This solves a problem by Erdős and Tuza.
In this paper, we study the rainbow Erdős-Rothschild problem with respect to $k$-term arithmetic progressions. For a set of positive integers $S \subseteq [n]$, an $r$-coloring of $S$ is \emph{rainbow $k$-AP-free} if it contains no rainbow $k$-term arithmetic progression. Let $g_{r,k}(S)$ denote the number of rainbow $k$-AP-free $r$-colorings of $S$. For sufficiently large $n$ and fixed integers $r\ge k\ge 3$, we show that $g_{r,k}(S)<g_{r,k}([n])$ for any proper subset $S\subset [n]$. Further, we prove that $\lim_{n\to \infty}g_{r,k}([n])/(k-1)^n= \binom{r}{k-1}$. Our result is asymptotically…
Let $G$ be a connected graph of chromatic number $k$. For a $k$-coloring $f$ of $G$, a full $f$-rainbow path is a path of order $k$ in $G$ whose vertices are all colored differently by $f$. We show that $G$ has a $k$-coloring $f$ such that every vertex of $G$ lies on a full $f$-rainbow path, which provides a positive answer to a question posed by Lin (Simple proofs of results on paths representing all colors in proper vertex-colorings, Graphs Combin. 23 (2007) 201-203). Furthermore, we show that if $G$ has a cycle of length $k$, then $G$ has a $k$-coloring $f$ such that, for every vertex $u$ o…
El-Zanati et al proved that for any 1-factorization $\mathcal{F}$ of the complete uniform hypergraph $\mathcal {G}=K_{rn}^{(r)}$ with $r\geq 2$ and $n\geq 3$, there is a rainbow 1-factor. We generalize their result and show that in any proper coloring of the complete uniform hypergraph $\mathcal {G}=K_{rn}^{(r)}$ with $r\geq 2$ and $n\geq 3$, there is a rainbow 1-factor.
For a given graph $H$ we define $ρ(H)$ to be the minimum order of a graph $G$ such that every proper vertex coloring of $G$ contains a rainbow induced subgraph isomorphic to $H$. We give upper and lower bounds for $ρ(H)$, compute the exact value for some classes of graphs, and consider an interesting combinatorial problem connected with computation of $ρ(H)$ for paths. This research is motivated by some ideas in on-line graph coloring algorithms.
A path in an edge-colored graph is called a monochromatic path if all edges of the path have a same color. We call $k$ paths $P_1,\cdots,P_k$ rainbow monochromatic paths if every $P_i$ is monochromatic and for any two $i\neq j$, $P_i$ and $P_j$ have different colors. An edge-coloring of a graph $G$ is said to be a rainbow monochromatic $k$-edge-connection coloring (or $RMC_k$-coloring for short) if every two distinct vertices of $G$ are connected by at least $k$ rainbow monochromatic paths. We use $rmc_k(G)$ to denote the maximum number of colors that ensures $G$ has an $RMC_k$-coloring, and t…
For maximal planar graphs of order $n\geq 4$, we prove that a vertex--coloring containing no rainbow faces uses at most $\lfloor\frac{2n-1}{3}\rfloor$ colors, and this is best possible. For maximal graph embedded on the projective plane, we obtain the analogous best bound $\lfloor\frac{2n+1}{3}\rfloor$. The main ingredients in the proofs are classical homological tools. By considering graphs as topological spaces, we introduce the notion of a null coloring, and prove that for any graph $G$ a maximal null coloring $f$ is such that the quotient graph $G/f$ is a forest.
A spanning tree of an edge-colored graph is rainbow provided that each of its edges receives a distinct color. In this paper we consider the natural extremal problem of maximizing and minimizing the number of rainbow spanning trees in a graph $G$. Such a question clearly needs restrictions on the colorings to be meaningful. For edge-colorings using $n-1$ colors and without rainbow cycles, known in the literature as JL-colorings, there turns out to be a particularly nice way of counting the rainbow spanning trees and we solve this problem completely for JL-colored complete graphs $K_n$ and comp…
Let $F(n,k)$ ($f(n,k)$) denote the maximum possible size of the smallest color class in a (partial) $k$-coloring of the Boolean lattice $B_n$ that does not admit a rainbow antichain of size $k$. The value of $F(n,3)$ and $f(n,2)$ has been recently determined exactly. We prove that for any fixed $k$ if $n$ is large enough, then $F(n,k),f(n,k)=2^{(1/2+o(1))n}$ holds. We also introduce the general functions for any poset $P$ and integer $c\ge |P|$: let $F(n,c,P)$ ($f(n,c,P)$) denote the the maximum possible size of the smallest color class in a (partial) $c$-coloring of the Boolean lattice $B_n$ …
Given a coloring of group elements, a rainbow solution to an equation is a solution whose every element is assigned a different color. The rainbow number of $\mathbb{Z}_n$ for an equation $eq$, denoted $rb(\mathbb{Z}_n,eq)$, is the smallest number of colors $r$ such that every exact $r$-coloring of $\mathbb{Z}_n$ admits a rainbow solution to the equation $eq$. We prove that for every exact $4$-coloring of $\mathbb{Z}_p$, where $p\geq 3$ is prime, there exists a rainbow solution to the Sidon equation $x_1+x_2=x_3+x_4$. Furthermore, we determine the rainbow number of $\mathbb{Z}_n$ for the Sidon…
In this paper, we consider rainbow connection number of maximal outerplanar graphs(MOPs) on algorithmic aspect. For the (MOP) $G$, we give sufficient conditions to guarantee that $rc(G) = diam(G).$ Moreover, we produce the graph with given diameter $d$ and give their rainbow coloring in linear time. X.Deng et al. $\cite{XD}$ give a polynomial time algorithm to compute the rainbow connection number of MOPs by the Maximal fan partition method, but only obtain a compact upper bound. J. Lauri $\cite{JL}$ proved that, for chordal outerplanar graphs given an edge-coloring, to verify whether it is ra…
An edge coloring of a simple graph $G$ is said to be \textit{proper rainbow-cycle-forbidding} (PRCF, for short) if no two incident edges receive the same color and for any cycle in $G$, at least two edges of that cycle receive the same color. A graph $G$ is defined to be \textit{PRCF-good} if it admits a PRCF edge coloring, and $G$ is deemed \textit{PRCF-bad} otherwise. In recent work, Hoffman, et al. study PRCF edge colorings and find many examples of PRCF-bad graphs having girth less than or equal to 4. They then ask whether such graphs exist having girth greater than 4. In our work, we give…
A tree $T$, in an edge-colored graph $G$, is called {\em a rainbow tree} if no two edges of $T$ are assigned the same color. For a vertex subset $S\in V(G)$, a tree that connects $S$ in $G$ is called an $S$-tree. A {\em $k$-rainbow coloring} of $G$ is an edge coloring of $G$ having the property that for every set $S$ of $k$ vertices of $G$, there exists a rainbow $S$-tree $T$ in $G$. The minimum number of colors needed in a $k$-rainbow coloring of $G$ is the {\em $k$-rainbow index of $G$}, denoted by $rx_k(G)$. In this paper, we obtain the exact values of $rx_3(K_{2,t})$ for any $t\geq 1$.
Fox--Grinshpun--Pach showed that every $3$-coloring of the complete graph on $n$ vertices without a rainbow triangle contains a clique of size $Ω\left(n^{1/3}\log^2 n\right)$ which uses at most two colors, and this bound is tight up to the constant factor. We show that if instead of looking for large cliques one only tries to find subgraphs of large chromatic number, one can do much better. We show that every such coloring contains a $2$-colored subgraph with chromatic number at least $n^{2/3}$, and this is best possible. We further show that for fixed positive integers $s,r$ with $s\leq r$, e…
For a fixed graph $H$ on $k$ vertices, and a graph $G$ on at least $k$ vertices, we write $G\rightarrow H$ if in any vertex-coloring of $G$ with $k$ colors, there is an induced subgraph isomorphic to $H$ whose vertices have distinct colors. In other words, if $G\rightarrow H$ then a totally multicolored induced copy of $H$ is unavoidable in any vertex-coloring of $G$ with $k$ colors. In this paper, we show that, with a few notable exceptions, for any graph $H$ on $k$ vertices and for any graph $G$ which is not isomorphic to $H$, $G\not\!\rightarrow H$. We explicitly describe all exceptional ca…
We address the following rainbow Ramsey problem: For posets $P,Q$ what is the smallest number $n$ such that any coloring of the elements of the Boolean lattice $B_n$ either admits a monochromatic copy of $P$ or a rainbow copy of $Q$. We consider both weak and strong (non-induced and induced) versions of this problem. We also investigate related problems on (partial) $k$-colorings of $B_n$ that do not admit rainbow antichains of size $k$.
An edge-coloring of a complete graph with a set of colors $C$ is called completely balanced if any vertex is incident to the same number of edges of each color from $C$. Erdős and Tuza asked in $1993$ whether for any graph $F$ on $\ell$ edges and any completely balanced coloring of any sufficiently large complete graph using $\ell$ colors contains a rainbow copy of $F$. This question was restated by Erdős in his list of ``Some of my favourite problems on cycles and colourings''. We answer this question in the negative for most cliques $F=K_q$ by giving explicit constructions of respective comp…
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…
A tree $T$, in an edge-colored graph $G$, is called {\em a rainbow tree} if no two edges of $T$ are assigned the same color. A {\em $k$-rainbow coloring}of $G$ is an edge coloring of $G$ having the property that for every set $S$ of $k$ vertices of $G$, there exists a rainbow tree $T$ in $G$ such that $S\subseteq V(T)$. The minimum number of colors needed in a $k$-rainbow coloring of $G$ is the {\em $k$-rainbow index of $G$}, denoted by $rx_k(G)$. In this paper, we consider 3-rainbow index $rx_3(G)$ of $G$. We first show that for connected graph $G$ with minimum degree $δ(G)\geq 3$, the tight …
An exact $r$-coloring of a set $S$ is a surjective function $c:S\to [r]$. The rainbow number of a set $S$ for equation $eq$ is the smallest integer $r$ such that every exact $r$-coloring of $S$ contains a rainbow solution to $eq$. In this paper, the rainbow number of $\Z_p$, for $p$ prime and the equation $a_1x_1 + a_2x_2 + a_3x_3 = b$ is determined. The rainbow number of $\Z_{n}$, for a natural number $n$, is determined under certain conditions.
Let $G$ be a quadrangulation on an orientable surface and let $g$ be a proper vertex-$4$-coloring of $G$. A face $F$ of $G$ is said to be a rainbow-face if all four distinct colors appear on its boundary. A $(c_1,c_2,c_3,c_4)$-face in $G$ is a rainbow face with colors $c_i$, $i=1,2,3,4$ on the boundary in clockwise order. We show that the number of $(c_1,c_2,c_3,c_4)$-faces in $G$ equals the number of $(c_4,c_3,c_2,c_1)$-faces. This implies in particular that the number of rainbow-faces of $G$ is even.
In a properly edge colored graph, a subgraph using every color at most once is called rainbow. In this thesis, we study rainbow cycles and paths in proper edge colorings of complete graphs, and we prove that in every proper edge coloring of K_n, there is a rainbow path on (3/4-o(1))n vertices, improving on the previously best bound of (2n+1)/3 from Gyarfas and Mhalla. Similarly, a k-rainbow path in a proper edge coloring of K_n is a path using no color more than k times. We prove that in every proper edge coloring of K_n, there is a k-rainbow path on (1-2/(k+1)!)n vertices.
Given integers $r \geq 2$, $k \geq 3$ and $2 \leq s \leq \binom{k}{2}$, and a graph $G$, we consider $r$-edge-colorings of $G$ with no copy of a complete graph $K_k$ on $k$ vertices where $s$ or more colors appear, which are called $\mathcal{P}_{k,s}$-free $r$-colorings. We show that, for large $n$ and $r \geq r_0(k,s)$, the $(k-1)$-partite Turán graph $T_{k-1}(n)$ on $n$ vertices yields the largest number of $\mathcal{P}_{k,s}$-free $r$-colorings among all $n$-vertex graphs, and that it is the unique graph with this property.
A rainbow $q$-coloring of a $k$-uniform hypergraph is a $q$-coloring of the vertex set such that every hyperedge contains all $q$ colors. We prove that given a rainbow $(k - 2\lfloor \sqrt{k}\rfloor)$-colorable $k$-uniform hypergraph, it is NP-hard to find a normal $2$-coloring. Previously, this was only known for rainbow $\lfloor k/2 \rfloor$-colorable hypergraphs (Guruswami and Lee, SODA 2015). We also study a generalization which we call rainbow $(q, p)$-coloring, defined as a coloring using $q$ colors such that every hyperedge contains at least $p$ colors. We prove that given a rainbow $(k…
A tree in an edge-colored connected graph $G$ is called \emph{a rainbow tree} if no two edges of it are assigned the same color. For a vertex subset $S\subseteq V(G)$, a tree is called an \emph{$S$-tree} if it connects $S$ in $G$. A \emph{$k$-rainbow coloring} of $G$ is an edge-coloring of $G$ having the property that for every set $S$ of $k$ vertices of $G$, there exists a rainbow $S$-tree in $G$. The minimum number of colors that are needed in a $k$-rainbow coloring of $G$ is the \emph{$k$-rainbow index} of $G$, denoted by $rx_k(G)$. The \emph{Steiner distance $d(S)$} of a set $S$ of vertice…
We prove that every 3-coloring of the edges of the complete graph on n vertices without a rainbow triangle contains a set of order Omega(n^{1/3}log^2 n) which uses at most two colors, and this bound is tight up to a constant factor. This verifies a conjecture of Hajnal which is a case of the multicolor generalization of the well-known Erdős-Hajnal conjecture. We further establish a generalization of this result. For fixed positive integers s and r with s at most r, we determine a constant c_{r,s} such that the following holds. Every r-coloring of the edges of the complete graph on n vertices w…
Let $f(n,p,q)$ be the minimum number of colors necessary to color the edges of $K_n$ so that every $K_p$ is at least $q$-colored. We improve current bounds on the {7/4}n-3$, slightly improving the bound of Axenovich. We make small improvements on bounds of Erd\H os and Gyárfás by showing ${5/6}n+1\leq f(n,4,5)$ and for all even $n\not\equiv 1 \pmod 3$, $f(n,4,5)\leq n-1$ . For a complete bipartite graph $G=K_{n,n}$, we show an n-color construction to color the edges of $G$ so that every $C_4\subseteq G$ is colored by at least three colors. This improves the best known upper bound of M. Axenovi…
A path in an edge-colored graph $G$, where adjacent edges may have the same color, is called a rainbow path if no two edges of the path are colored the same. The rainbow connection number $rc(G)$ of $G$ is the minimum integer $i$ for which there exists an $i$-edge-coloring of $G$ such that every two distinct vertices of $G$ are connected by a rainbow path. The strong rainbow connection number $src(G)$ of $G$ is the minimum integer $i$ for which there exists an $i$-edge-coloring of $G$ such that every two distinct vertices $u$ and $v$ of $G$ are connected by a rainbow path of length $d(u,v)$. I…
If we want to color $1,2,\ldots,n$ with the property that all 3-term arithmetic progressions are rainbow (that is, their elements receive 3 distinct colors), then, obviously, we need to use at least $n/2$ colors. Surprisingly, much fewer colors suffice if we are allowed to leave a negligible proportion of integers uncolored. Specifically, we prove that there exist $α,β<1$ such that for every $n$, there is a subset $A$ of $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ of size at least $n-n^α$, the elements of which can be colored with $n^β$ colors with the property that every 3-term arithmetic progression in $A$ is rainbo…
Let G be an n-vertex graph that contains linearly many cherries (i.e., paths on 3 vertices), and let c be a coloring of the edges of the complete graph K_n such that at each vertex every color appears only constantly many times. In 1979, Shearer conjectured that such a coloring c must contain a properly colored copy of G. We establish this conjecture in a strong form, showing that it holds even for graphs G with O(n^(4/3)) cherries and moreover this bound on the number of cherries is best possible up to a constant factor. We also prove that one can find a rainbow copy of such G in every edge-c…
For every even positive integer $k\ge 4$ let $f(n,k)$ denote the minimim number of colors required to color the edges of the $n$-dimensional cube $Q_n$, so that the edges of every copy of $k$-cycle $C_k$ receive $k$ distinct colors. Faudree, Gyárfás, Lesniak and Schelp proved that $f(n,4)=n$ for $n=4$ or $n>5$. We consider larger $k$ and prove that if $k \equiv 0$ (mod 4), then there are positive constants $c_1, c_2$ depending only on $k$ such that $$c_1n^{k/4} < f(n,k) < c_2 n^{k/4}.$$ Our upper bound uses an old construction of Bose and Chowla of generalized Sidon sets. For $k \equiv 2$ (mod…
Let $c$ be an edge-coloring of the complete $n$-vertex graph $K_n$. The problem of finding properly colored and rainbow Hamilton cycles in $c$ was initiated in 1976 by Bollobás and Erd\H os and has been extensively studied since then. Recently it was extended to the hypergraph setting by Dudek, Frieze and Ruciński. We generalize these results, giving sufficient local (resp. global) restrictions on the colorings which guarantee a properly colored (resp. rainbow) copy of a given hypergraph $G$. We also study multipartite analogues of these questions. We give (up to a constant factor) optimal suf…
The Ramsey multiplicity constant of a graph $H$ is the minimum proportion of copies of $H$ in the complete graph which are monochromatic under an edge-coloring of $K_n$ as $n$ goes to infinity. Graphs for which this minimum is asymptotically achieved by taking a random coloring are called {\em common}, and common graphs have been studied extensively, leading to the Burr-Rosta conjecture and Sidorenko's conjecture. Erdős and Sós asked what the maximum number of rainbow triangles is in a $3$-coloring of the edge set of $K_n$, a rainbow version of the Ramsey multiplicity question. A graph $H$ is …
Let $G$ be a nontrivial connected graph with an edge-coloring $c:E(G)\rightarrow \{1,2,\ldots,q\},$ $q\in \mathbb{N}$, where adjacent edges may be colored the same. A tree $T$ in $G$ is a $rainbow tree$ if no two edges of $T$ receive the same color. For a vertex set $S\subseteq V(G)$, the tree connecting $S$ in $G$ is called an $S$-tree. The minimum number of colors that are needed in an edge-coloring of $G$ such that there is a rainbow $S$-tree for each $k$-set $S$ of $V(G)$ is called the $k$-rainbow index of $G$, denoted by $rx_k(G)$. In \cite{Zhang}, they got that the $k$-rainbow index of a…
A tree $T$, in an edge-colored graph $G$, is called {\em a rainbow tree} if no two edges of $T$ are assigned the same color. A {\em $k$-rainbow coloring}of $G$ is an edge coloring of $G$ having the property that for every set $S$ of $k$ vertices of $G$, there exists a rainbow tree $T$ in $G$ such that $S\subseteq V(T)$. The minimum number of colors needed in a $k$-rainbow coloring of $G$ is the {\em $k$-rainbow index of $G$}, denoted by $rx_k(G)$. Graph operations, both binary and unary, are an interesting subject, which can be used to understand structures of graphs. In this paper, we will st…
Proper edge colorings of planar graphs with rainbow $C_4$-s
Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics（阿尔弗雷德·雷尼数学研究所）；Iowa State University（爱荷华州立大学）；Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi（阿布扎比索邦大学）；Pázmány Péter Catholic University（帕兹马尼·彼得天主教大学）；Worcester Polytechnic Institute（伍斯特理工学院）
A tree in an edge-colored graph is said to be rainbow if no two edges on the tree share the same color. An edge-coloring of $G$ is called 3-rainbow if for any three vertices in $G$, there exists a rainbow tree connecting them. The 3-rainbow index $rx_3(G)$ of $G$ is defined as the minimum number of colors that are needed in a 3-rainbow coloring of $G$. This concept, introduced by Chartrand et al., can be viewed as a generalization of the rainbow connection. In this paper, we study the 3-rainbow index by using connected three-way dominating sets and 3-dominating sets. We shown that for every co…
