The generalized theta graph Θ_{s_1,...,s_k} consists of a pair of endvertices joined by k internally disjoint paths of lengths s_1,...,s_k \ge 1. We prove that the roots of the chromatic polynomial $pi(Θ_{s_1,...,s_k},z) of a k-ary generalized theta graph all lie in the disc |z-1| \le [1 + o(1)] k/\log k, uniformly in the path lengths s_i. Moreover, we prove that Θ_{2,...,2} \simeq K_{2,k} indeed has a chromatic root of modulus [1 + o(1)] k/\log k. Finally, for k \le 8 we prove that the generalized theta graph with a chromatic root that maximizes |z-1| is the one with all path lengths equal to 2; we conjecture that this holds for all k.
DP-coloring (also called correspondence coloring) is a generalization of list coloring that has been widely studied in recent years after its introduction by Dvořák and Postle in 2015. The chromatic polynomial of a graph is an extensively studied notion in combinatorics since its introduction by Birkhoff in 1912; denoted $P(G,m)$, it equals the number of proper $m$-colorings of graph $G$. Counting function analogues of the chromatic polynomial have been introduced and studied for list colorings: $P_{\ell}$, the list color function (1990); DP colorings: $P_{DP}$, the DP color function (2019), a…
Cones of Theta Graphs are Enumeratively Chromatic-Choosable
School of Computing, University of South Alabama（南阿拉巴马大学计算机学院）；McGill-Toolen Catholic High School（麦吉尔-图伦天主教高中）；Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of South Alabama（南阿拉巴马大学数学与统计系）；Department of Applied Mathematics, Illinois Institute of Technology（伊利诺伊理工学院应用数学系）；Alabama School of Math and Science（阿拉巴马数学与科学学校）；Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of South Alabama（南阿拉巴马大学生物医学科学系）
We show that Hoffman's sum of eigenvalues bound for the chromatic number is at least as good as the Lovász theta number, but no better than the ceiling of the fractional chromatic number. In order to do so, we display an interesting connection between this sum of eigenvalues bound and a generalization of the Lovász theta number introduced by Manber and Narasimhan in 1988.
The packing chromatic number $χ$ $ρ$ (G) of an undirected (resp. oriented) graph G is the smallest integer k such that its set of vertices V (G) can be partitioned into k disjoint subsets V 1,..., V k, in such a way that every two distinct vertices in V i are at distance (resp. directed distance) greater than i in G for every i, 1 $\le$ i $\le$ k. The generalized theta graph $Θ$ {\ell} 1,...,{\ell}p consists in two end-vertices joined by p $\ge$ 2 internally vertex-disjoint paths with respective lengths 1 $\le$ {\ell} 1 $\le$ . . . $\le$ {\ell} p. We prove that the packing chromatic number of …
This note exhibits graphs whose chromatic polynomials have the Beraha number $B_{10} = (5 + \sqrt{5})/2$ as a root. It was previously known that no other non-integer Beraha number is a chromatic root, and so these examples complete the determination of precisely which Beraha numbers can be chromatic roots.
Given a group $G$ of automorphisms of a graph $Γ$, the orbital chromatic polynomial $OP_{Γ,G}(x)$ is the polynomial whose value at a positive integer $k$ is the number of orbits of $G$ on proper $k$-colorings of $Γ.$ In \cite{Cameron}, Cameron et. al. explore the roots of orbital chromatic polynomials, and in particular prove that orbital chromatic roots are dense in $\mathbb{R}$, extending Thomassen's famous result (see \cite{Thomassen}) that chromatic roots are dense in $[\frac{32}{27},\infty)$. Cameron et al \cite{Cameron} further conjectured that the real roots of the orbital chromatic pol…
We define the chromatic measure of a finite simple graph as the uniform distribution on its chromatic roots. We show that for a Benjamini-Schramm convergent sequence of finite graphs, the chromatic measures converge in holomorphic moments. As a corollary, for a convergent sequence of finite graphs, we prove that the normalized log of the chromatic polynomial converges to an analytic function outside a bounded disc. This generalizes a recent result of Borgs, Chayes, Kahn and Lovász, who proved convergence at large enough positive integers and answers a question of Borgs. Our methods also lead t…
A {\em chromatic root} is a root of the chromatic polynomial of a graph. While the real chromatic roots have been extensively studied and well understood, little is known about the {\em real parts} of chromatic roots. It is not difficult to see that the largest real chromatic root of a graph with $n$ vertices is $n-1$, and indeed, it is known that the largest real chromatic root of a graph is at most the tree-width of the graph. Analogous to these facts, it was conjectured in [8] that the real parts of chromatic roots are also bounded above by both $n-1$ and the tree-width of the graph. In thi…
We present an infinite family of 3-connected non-bipartite graphs with chromatic roots in the interval (1,2) thus resolving a conjecture of Jackson's in the negative. In addition, we briefly consider other graph classes that are conjectured to have no chromatic roots in (1,2).
We exhibit infinite families of planar graphs with real chromatic roots arbitrarily close to 4, thus resolving a long-standing conjecture in the affirmative.
I show that the zeros of the chromatic polynomials P_G(q) for the generalized theta graphs Θ^{(s,p)} are, taken together, dense in the whole complex plane with the possible exception of the disc |q-1| < 1. The same holds for their dichromatic polynomials (alias Tutte polynomials, alias Potts-model partition functions) Z_G(q,v) outside the disc |q+v| < |v|. An immediate corollary is that the chromatic zeros of not-necessarily-planar graphs are dense in the whole complex plane. The main technical tool in the proof of these results is the Beraha-Kahane-Weiss theorem on the limit sets of zeros for…
By the construction of suitable graphs and the determination of their chromatic polynomials, we resolve two open questions concerning real chromatic roots. First we exhibit graphs for which the Beraha number $B_{10} = (5 + \sqrt{5})/2$ is a chromatic root. As it was previously known that no other non-integer Beraha number is a chromatic root, this completes the determination of precisely which Beraha numbers can be chromatic roots. Next we construct an infinite family of $3$-connected graphs such that for any $k \geqslant 1$, there is a member of the family with $q=2$ as a chromatic root of mu…
We investigate vector chromatic number, Lovasz theta of the complement, and quantum chromatic number from the perspective of graph homomorphisms. We prove an analog of Sabidussi's theorem for each of these parameters, i.e. that for each of the parameters, the value on the Cartesian product of graphs is equal to the maximum of the values on the factors. We also prove an analog of Hedetniemi's conjecture for Lovasz theta of the complement, i.e. that its value on the categorical product of graphs is equal to the minimum of its values on the factors. We conjecture that the analogous results hold f…
A \emph{chromatic root} is a root of the chromatic polynomial of a graph. Any chromatic root is an algebraic integer. Much is known about the location of chromatic roots in the real and complex numbers, but rather less about their properties as algebraic numbers. This question was the subject of a seminar at the Isaac Newton Institute in late 2008. The purpose of this paper is to report on the seminar and subsequent developments. We conjecture that, for every algebraic integer $α$, there is a natural number $n$ such that $α+n$ is a chromatic root. This is proved for quadratic integers, an exte…
Let $G = (V,E)$ be a finite, simple, connected graph with chromatic polynomial $P_G(q)$. Sokal \cite{sokal} proved that the roots of the chromatic polynomial of $G$ are bounded in absolute value by $KD$ where, $D$ is the maximum degree of the graph and $7< K < 8$ is a constant. In this paper we generalize this result to uniform hypergraphs. To prove our results we will use the theory of the bounded exponential type graph polynomials.
In this short note we observe that recent results of Abert and Hubai and of Csikvari and Frenkel about Benjamini--Schramm continuity of the holomorphic moments of the roots of the chromatic polynomial extend to the theory of dense graph sequences. We offer a number of problems and conjectures motivated by this observation.
The chromatic critical edge theorem of Simonovits states that for a given color critical graph $H$ with $χ(H)=k+1$, there exists an $n_0(H)$ such that the Turán graph $T_{n,k}$ is the only extremal graph with respect to $ex(n,H)$ provided $n \geq n_0(H)$. Nikiforov's pioneer work on spectral graph theory implies that the color critical edge theorem also holds if $ex(n,H)$ is replaced by the maximum spectral radius and $n_0(H)$ is an exponential function of $|H|$. We want to know which color critical graphs $H$ satisfy that $n_0(H)$ is a linear function of $|H|$. Previous graphs include complet…
Given a minor-closed class of graphs $\mathcal{G}$, what is the infimum of the non-trivial roots of the chromatic polynomial of $G \in \mathcal{G}$? When $\mathcal{G}$ is the class of all graphs, the answer is known to be $32/27$. We answer this question exactly for three minor-closed classes of graphs. Furthermore, we conjecture precisely when the value is larger than $32/27$.
While much attention has been directed to the maximum modulus and maximum real part of chromatic roots of graphs of order $n$ (that is, with $n$ vertices), relatively little is known about the maximum imaginary part of such graphs. We prove that the maximum imaginary part can grow linearly in the order of the graph. We also show that for any fixed $p \in (0,1)$, almost every random graph $G$ in the Erdös-Rényi model has a non-real root.
We give a closed formula for Lovasz theta number of the powers of cycle graphs and of their complements, the circular complete graphs. As a consequence, we establish that the circular chromatic number of a circular perfect graph is computable in polynomial time. We also derive an asymptotic estimate for this theta number.
If $G$ is a $k$-chromatic graph of order $n$ then it is known that the chromatic polynomial of $G$, $π(G,x)$, is at most $x(x-1)\cdots (x-(k-1))x^{n-k} = (x)_{\downarrow k}x^{n-k}$ for every $x\in \mathbb{N}$. We improve here this bound by showing that \[ π(G,x) \leq (x)_{\downarrow k} (x-1)^{Δ(G)-k+1} x^{n-1-Δ(G)}\] for every $x\in \mathbb{N},$ where $Δ(G)$ is the maximum degree of $G$. Secondly, we show that if $G$ is a connected $k$-chromatic graph of order $n$ where $k\geq 4$ then $π(G,x)$ is at most $(x)_{\downarrow k}(x-1)^{n-k}$ for every real $x\geq n-2+\left( {n \choose 2} -{k \choose…
The notion of duality is a key element in understanding the interplay between the stability and chromatic numbers of a graph. This notion is a central aspect in the celebrated theory of perfect graphs, and is further and deeply developed in the context of the Lovász theta function and its equivalent characterizations and variants. The main achievement of this paper is the introduction of a new family of norms, providing upper bounds for the stability number, that are obtained from duality from the norms motivated by Hoffman's lower bound for the chromatic number and which achieve the (compleme…
We prove that the (real or complex) chromatic roots of a series-parallel graph with maxmaxflow Lambda lie in the disc |q-1| < (Lambda-1)/log 2. More generally, the same bound holds for the (real or complex) roots of the multivariate Tutte polynomial when the edge weights lie in the "real antiferromagnetic regime" -1 \le v_e \le 0. This result is within a factor 1/log 2 \approx 1.442695 of being sharp
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…
I study the leading root x_0(y) of the partial theta function Θ_0(x,y) = \sum_{n=0}^\infty x^n y^{n(n-1)/2}, considered as a formal power series. I prove that all the coefficients of -x_0(y) are strictly positive. Indeed, I prove the stronger results that all the coefficients of -1/x_0(y) after the constant term 1 are strictly negative, and all the coefficients of 1/x_0(y)^2 after the constant term 1 are strictly negative except for the vanishing coefficient of y^3.
It is proved that if $G$ is a graph containing a spanning tree with at most three leaves, then the chromatic polynomial of $G$ has no roots in the interval $(1,t_1]$, where $t_1 \approx 1.2904$ is the smallest real root of the polynomial $(t-2)^6 +4(t-1)^2(t-2)^3 -(t-1)^4$. We also construct a family of graphs containing such spanning trees with chromatic roots converging to $t_1$ from above. We employ the Whitney $2$-switch operation to manage the analysis of an infinite class of chromatic polynomials.
The oriented chromatic polynomial of a oriented graph outputs the number of oriented $k$-colourings for any input $k$. We fully classify those oriented graphs for which the oriented graph has the same chromatic polynomial as the underlying simple graph, closing an open problem posed by Sopena. We find that such oriented graphs can be both identified and constructed in polynomial time as they are exactly the family of quasi-transitive oriented co-interval graphs. We study the analytic properties of this polynomial and show that there exist oriented graphs which have chromatic polynomials have r…
The $σ$-polynomial is given by $σ(G,x) = \sum_{i=χ(G)}^{n} a_{i}(G)\, x^{i}$, where $a_{i}(G)$ is the number of partitions of the vertices of $G$ into $i$ nonempty independent sets. These polynomials are closely related to chromatic polynomials, as the chromatic polynomial of $G$ is given by $\sum_{i=χ(G)}^{n} a_{i}(G)\, x(x-1) \cdots (x-(i-1))$. It is known that the closure of the real roots of chromatic polynomials is precisely $\{0,~1\} \bigcup [32/27,\infty)$, with $(-\infty,0)$, $(0,1)$ and $(1,32/27)$ being maximal zero-free intervals for roots of chromatic polynomials. We ask here wheth…
We give a new interpretation of the chromatic polynomial of a simple graph G in terms of the Kac-Moody Lie algebra with Dynkin diagram G. We show that the chromatic polynomial is essentially the q-Kostant partition function of this Lie algebra evaluated on the sum of the simple roots. Applying the Peterson recurrence formula for root multiplicities, we obtain a new realization of the chromatic polynomial as a weighted sum of paths in the bond lattice of G.
Recently, M.\ Abért and T.\ Hubai studied the following problem. The chromatic measure of a finite simple graph is defined to be the uniform distribution on its chromatic roots. Abért and Hubai proved that for a Benjamini-Schramm convergent sequence of finite graphs, the chromatic measures converge in holomorphic moments. They also showed that the normalized log of the chromatic polynomial converges to a harmonic real function outside a bounded disc. In this paper we generalize their work to a wide class of graph polynomials, namely, multiplicative graph polynomials of bounded exponential type…
In this paper, we present some properties on chromatic polynomials of hypergraphs which do not hold for chromatic polynomials of graphs. We first show that chromatic polynomials of hypergraphs have all integers as their zeros and contain dense real zeros in the set of real numbers. We then prove that for any multigraph $G=(V,E)$, the number of totally cyclic orientations of $G$ is equal to the value of $|P(H,-1)|$, where $P(H,λ)$ is the chromatic polynomial of a hypergraph $H$ which is constructed from $G$. Finally we show that the multiplicity of root "$0$" of $P(H,λ)$ may be at least $2$ for…
We introduce a generalization of the celebrated Lovász theta number of a graph to simplicial complexes of arbitrary dimension. Our generalization takes advantage of real simplicial cohomology theory, in particular combinatorial Laplacians, and provides a semidefinite programming upper bound of the independence number of a simplicial complex. We consider properties of the graph theta number such as the relationship to Hoffman's ratio bound and to the chromatic number and study how they extend to higher dimensions. Like in the case of graphs, the higher dimensional theta number can be extended t…
Given a graph $G$ of order $n$, the $σ$-$polynomial$ of $G$ is the generating function $σ(G,x) = \sum a_{i}x^{i}$ where $a_{i}$ is the number of partitions of the vertex set of $G$ into $i$ nonempty independent sets. Such polynomials arise in a natural way from chromatic polynomials. Brenti [1] proved that $σ$-polynomials of graphs with chromatic number at least $n-2$ had all real roots, and conjectured the same held for chromatic number $n-3$. We affirm this conjecture.
School of Mathematics and Statistics, Beijing Institute of Technology（北京理工大学数学与统计学院）；MIIT Key Laboratory of Mathematical Theory and Computation in Information Security, Beijing Institute of Technology（北京理工大学工业和信息化部信息安全数学理论与计算重点实验室）
本文研究了联图的色对称函数，通过组合方法得到了几种图类的色对称函数展开式，并提出了帽链的 e 正猜想。
The chromatic polynomial is a well studied object in graph theory. There are many results and conjectures about the log-concavity of the chromatic polynomial and other polynomials related to it. The location of the roots of these polynomials has also been well studied. One famous result due to A. Sokal and C. Borgs provides a bound on the absolute value of the roots of the chromatic polynomial in terms of the highest degree of the graph. We use this result to prove a modification of a log-concavity conjecture due to F. Brenti. The original conjecture of Brenti was that the chromatic polynomial…
The Lovasz theta function provides a lower bound for the chromatic number of finite graphs based on the solution of a semidefinite program. In this paper we generalize it so that it gives a lower bound for the measurable chromatic number of distance graphs on compact metric spaces. In particular we consider distance graphs on the unit sphere. There we transform the original infinite semidefinite program into an infinite linear program which then turns out to be an extremal question about Jacobi polynomials which we solve explicitly in the limit. As an application we derive new lower bounds for…
Richard P. Stanley defined the chromatic symmetric function of a simple graph and has conjectured that every tree is determined by its chromatic symmetric function. Recently, Takahiro Hasebe and the author proved that the order quasisymmetric functions, which are analogs of the chromatic symmetric functions, distinguish rooted trees. In this paper, using a similar method, we prove that the chromatic symmetric functions distinguish trivially perfect graphs. Moreover, we also prove that claw-free cographs, that is, $ \{K_{1,3},P_{4}\} $-free graphs belong to a known class of $ e $-positive graph…
Lovasz theta function and the related theta body of graphs have been in the center of the intersection of four research areas: combinatorial optimization, graph theory, information theory, and semidefinite optimization. In this paper, utilizing a modern convex optimization viewpoint, we provide a set of minimal conditions (axioms) under which certain key, desired properties are generalized, including the main equivalent characterizations of the theta function, the theta body of graphs, and the corresponding antiblocking duality relations. Our framework describes several semidefinite and polyhe…
We establish a connection between root multiplicities for Borcherds-Kac-Moody algebras and graph coloring. We show that the generalized chromatic polynomial of the graph associated to a given Borcherds algebra can be used to give a closed formula for certain root multiplicities. Using this connection we give a second interpretation, namely that the root multiplicity of a given root coincides with the number of acyclic orientations with a unique sink of a certain graph (depending on the root). Finally, using the combinatorics of Lyndon words we construct a basis for the root spaces correspondin…
Using the definition of colouring of $2$-edge-coloured graphs derived from $2$-edge-coloured graph homomorphism, we extend the definition of chromatic polynomial to $2$-edge-coloured graphs. We find closed forms for the first three coefficients of this polynomial that generalize the known results for the chromatic polynomial of a graph. We classify those $2$-edge-coloured graphs that have a chromatic polynomial equal to the chromatic polynomial of the underlying graph, when every vertex is incident to edges of both colours. Finally, we examine the behaviour of the roots of this polynomial, hig…
We establish a set of recursion relations for the coefficients in the chromatic polynomial of a graph or a hypergraph. As an application we provide a generalization of Whitney's broken cycle theorem for hypergraphs, as well as deriving an explicit formula for the linear coefficient of the chromatic polynomial of the $r$-complete hypergraph in terms of roots of the Taylor polynomials for the exponential function.
Bicliques are complements of bipartite graphs; as such each consists of two cliques joined by a number of edges. In this paper we study algebraic aspects of the chromatic polynomials of these graphs. We derive a formula for the chromatic polynomial of an arbitrary biclique, and use this to give certain conditions under which two of the graphs have chromatic polynomials with the same splitting field. Finally, we use a subfamily of bicliques to prove the cubic case of the $α+n$ conjecture, by showing that for any cubic integer $α$, there is a natural number $n$ such that $α+n$ is a chromatic roo…
Roots of graph polynomials such as the characteristic polynomial, the chromatic polynomial, the matching polynomial, and many others are widely studied. In this paper we examine to what extent the location of these roots reflects the graph theoretic properties of the underlying graph.
Let $\mathfrak g$ be a Borcherds algebra with the associated graph $G$. We prove that the chromatic symmetric function of $G$ can be recovered from the Weyl denominator identity of $\mathfrak g$ and this gives a Lie theoretic proof of Stanley's expression for chromatic symmetric function in terms of power sum symmetric function. Also, this gives an expression for chromatic symmetric function of $G$ in terms of root multiplicities of $\lie g$. The absolute value of the linear coefficient of the chromatic polynomial of $G$ is known as the chromatic discriminant of $G$. As an application of our m…
Hadwiger's famous coloring conjecture states that every $t$-chromatic graph contains a $K_t$-minor. Holroyd [Bull. London Math. Soc. 29, (1997), pp. 139--144] conjectured the following strengthening of Hadwiger's conjecture: If $G$ is a $t$-chromatic graph and $S \subseteq V(G)$ takes all colors in every $t$-coloring of $G$, then $G$ contains a $K_t$-minor rooted at $S$. We prove this conjecture in the first open case of $t=4$. Notably, our result also directly implies a stronger version of Hadwiger's conjecture for $5$-chromatic graphs as follows: Every $5$-chromatic graph contains a $K_5$-mi…
In 2003 Kostochka, Pelsmajer, and West introduced a list analogue of equitable coloring called equitable choosability. A $k$-assignment, $L$, for a graph $G$ assigns a list, $L(v)$, of $k$ available colors to each $v \in V(G)$, and an equitable $L$-coloring of $G$ is a proper coloring, $f$, of $G$ such that $f(v) \in L(v)$ for each $v \in V(G)$ and each color class of $f$ has size at most $\lceil |V(G)|/k \rceil$. In 2018, Kaul, Mudrock, and Pelsmajer subsequently introduced the List Equitable Total Coloring Conjecture which states that if $T$ is a total graph of some simple graph, then $T$ is…
We prove that in sparse Erdős-Rényi graphs of average degree $d$, the vector chromatic number (the relaxation of chromatic number coming from the Lovàsz theta function) is typically $\tfrac{1}{2}\sqrt{d} + o_d(1)$. This fits with a long-standing conjecture that various refutation and hypothesis-testing problems concerning $k$-colorings of sparse Erdős-Rényi graphs become computationally intractable below the `Kesten-Stigum threshold' $d_{KS,k} = (k-1)^2$. Along the way, we use the celebrated Ihara-Bass identity and a carefully constructed non-backtracking random walk to prove two deterministic…
Given a graph $G$ and a positive integer $d$, an orthogonal vector $d$-coloring of $G$ is an assignment $f$ of vectors of $\mathbb{R}^d$ to $V(G)$ in such a way that adjacent vertices receive orthogonal vectors. The orthogonal chromatic number of $G$, denoted by $χ_v(G)$, is the minimum $d$ for which $G$ admits an orthogonal vector $d$-coloring. This notion has close ties with the notions of Lovász Theta Function, quantum chromatic number, and many other problems, and even though this and related metrics have been extensively studied over the years, we have found that there is a gap in the kno…
We prove that any total boolean function of rank $r$ can be computed by a deterministic communication protocol of complexity $O(\sqrt{r} \cdot \log(r))$. Equivalently, any graph whose adjacency matrix has rank $r$ has chromatic number at most $2^{O(\sqrt{r} \cdot \log(r))}$. This gives a nearly quadratic improvement in the dependence on the rank over previous results.
