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 combinatorial proof of Schrijver's theorem.
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.
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), …
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 $KG_{n,k}$.
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…
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 …
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 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 $m\geq m(n,s,t)$.
In this paper, we obtain a combinatorial formula for computing the Betti numbers in the linear strand of edge ideals of bipartite Kneser graphs. We deduce lower and upper bounds for regularity of powers of edge ideals of these graphs in terms of associated combinatorial data and show that the lower bound is attained in some cases. Also, we obtain bounds on the projective dimension of edge ideals of these graphs in terms of combinatorial data.
In this paper, we prove a generalization of a conjecture of Erdös, about the chromatic number of certain Kneser-type hypergraphs. For integers $n,k,r,s$ with $n\ge rk$ and $2\le s\le r$, the $r$-uniform general Kneser hypergraph $\mbox{KG}^r_s(n,k)$, has all $k$-subsets of $\{1,\dots,n\}$ as the vertex set and all multi-sets $\{A_1,\dots, A_r\}$ of $k$-subsets with $s$-wise empty intersections as the edge set. The case $r=s=2$, was considers by Kneser \cite{K} in 1955, where he conjectured that its chromatic number is $n-2(k-1)$. This was finally proved by Lovász \cite{L} in 1978. The case $r>…
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…
A foundation is laid for a theory of combinatorial groupoids, allowing us to use concepts like ``holonomy'', ``parallel transport'', ``bundles'', ``combinatorial curvature'' etc. in the context of simplicial (polyhedral) complexes, posets, graphs, polytopes and other combinatorial objects. A new, holonomy-type invariant for cubical complexes is introduced, leading to a combinatorial ``Theorema Egregium'' for cubical complexes non-embeddable into cubical lattices. Parallel transport of Hom-complexes and maps is used as a tool for extending Babson-Kozlov-Lovasz graph coloring results to more gen…
We initiate the study of applying the Combinatorial Nullstellensatz to the DP-coloring of graphs even though, as is well-known, the Alon-Tarsi theorem does not apply to DP-coloring. We define the notion of good covers of prime order which allows us to apply the Combinatorial Nullstellensatz to DP-coloring. We apply these tools to DP-coloring of the cones of certain bipartite graphs and uniquely 3-colorable graphs. We also extend a result of Akbari, Mirrokni, and Sadjad (2006) on unique list colorability to the context of DP-coloring. We establish a sufficient algebraic condition for a graph $G…
We give a very short self-contained combinatorial proof of the Babson-Kozlov conjecture, by presenting a cochain whose coboundary is the desired power of the characteristic class.
We generalize the notion of a coloring complex of a graph to linearized combinatorial Hopf monoids. We determine when a linearized combinatorial Hopf monoid has such a construction, and discover some inequalities that are satisfied by the quasisymmetric function invariants associated to the combinatorial Hopf monoid. We show that the collection of all such coloring complexes forms a linearized combinatorial Hopf monoid, which is the terminal object in the category of combinatorial Hopf monoids with convex characters. We also study several examples of combinatorial Hopf monoids.
The long-standing Erdős-Faber-Lovász conjecture states that every $n$-uniform linear hypergaph with $n$ edges has a proper vertex-coloring using $n$ colors. In this paper we propose an algebraic framework to the problem and formulate a corresponding stronger conjecture. Using the Combinatorial Nullstellensatz, we reduce the Erdős-Faber-Lovász conjecture to the existence of non-zero coefficients in certain polynomials. These coefficients are in turn related to the number of orientations with prescribed in-degree sequences of some auxiliary graphs. We prove the existence of certain orientations,…
We consider the problem of coloring a 3-colorable graph in polynomial time using as few colors as possible. We present a combinatorial algorithm getting down to $\tO(n^{4/11})$ colors. This is the first combinatorial improvement of Blum's $\tO(n^{3/8})$ bound from FOCS'90. Like Blum's algorithm, our new algorithm composes nicely with recent semi-definite approaches. The current best bound is $O(n^{0.2072})$ colors by Chlamtac from FOCS'07. We now bring it down to $O(n^{0.2038})$ colors.
We study the chromatic quasisymmetric class function of a linearized combinatorial Hopf monoid. Given a linearized combinatorial Hopf monoid $H$, and an $H$-structure $h$ on a set $N$, there are proper colorings of $h$, generalizing graph colorings and poset partitions. We show that the automorphism group of $h$ acts on the set of proper colorings. The chromatic quasisymmetric class function enumerates the fixed points of this action, weighting each coloring with a monomial. For the Hopf monoid of graphs this invariant generalizes Stanley's chromatic symmetric function and specializes to the o…
The Kneser graph ${\rm KG}_{n,k}$ is a graph whose vertex set is the family of all $k$-subsets of $[n]$ and two vertices are adjacent if their corresponding subsets are disjoint. The classical Erdős-Ko-Rado theorem determines the cardinality and structure of a maximum induced $K_2$-free subgraph in ${\rm KG}_{n,k}$. As a generalization of the Erdős-Ko-Rado theorem, Erdős proposed a conjecture about the maximum order of an induced $K_{s+1}$-free subgraph of ${\rm KG}_{n,k}$. As the best known result concerning this conjecture, Frankl [Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series A, 2013], when $n\ge…
A significant group of problems coming from the realm of Combinatorial Geometry can only be approached through the use of Algebraic Topology. From the first such application to Kneser's problem in 1978 by Lov% ász \cite{Lovasz} through the solution of the Lovász conjecture \cite% {Babson-Kozlov}, \cite{Carsten}, many methods from Algebraic Topology have been used. Specifically, it appears that the understanding of equivariant theories is of the most importance. The solution of many problems depends on the existence of an elegantly constructed equivariant map. For example, the following problem…
This thesis is basically devoted to matroids -- fundamental structure of combinatorial optimization -- though some of our results concern simplicial complexes, or Euclidean spaces. We study old and new problems for these structures, with combinatorial, algebraic, and topological flavor.
The paper deals with an algorithmic problem concerning combinatorial game theory. Here we introduce and analyze a continuous generalization of Chip Game from the work of Duraj, Gutowski and Kozik. The general Chip game was introduced by Aslam and Dhagat to model on-line type problems on hypergraph coloring.
For each strongly connected finite-dimensional (pure) simplicial complex we construct a finite group, the group of projectivities of the complex, which is a combinatorial but not a topological invariant. This group is studied for combinatorial manifolds and, in particular, for polytopal simplicial spheres. The results are applied to a coloring problem for simplicial (or, dually, simple) polytopes which arises in the area of toric algebraic varieties.
In an undirected graph $G$, a conflict-free coloring with respect to open neighborhoods (denoted by CFON coloring) is an assignment of colors to the vertices such that every vertex has a uniquely colored vertex in its open neighborhood. The minimum number of colors required for a CFON coloring of $G$ is the CFON chromatic number of $G$, denoted by $χ_{ON}(G)$. The decision problem that asks whether $χ_{ON}(G) \leq k$ is NP-complete. We obtain the following results: * Bodlaender, Kolay and Pieterse [WADS 2019] showed the upper bound $χ_{ON}(G)\leq {\sf fvs}(G)+3$, where ${\sf fvs}(G)$ denotes t…
We show how to couple phase-oscillators on a graph so that collective dynamics "searches" for the coloring of that graph as it relaxes toward the dynamical equilibrium. This translates a combinatorial optimization problem (graph coloring) into a functional optimization problem (finding and evaluating the global minimum of dynamical non-equilibrium potential, done by the natural system's evolution). Using a sample of graphs, we show that our method can serve as a viable alternative to the traditional combinatorial algorithms. Moreover, we show that, with the same computational cost, our method …
We provide a detailed study of topological and combinatorial properties of sectionable tournaments. This class forms an inductively constructed family of tournaments grounded over simply disconnected tournaments, those tournaments whose fundamental groups of acyclic complexes are non-trivial. When $T$ is a sectionable tournament, we fully describe the cell-structure of its acyclic complex $Acy(T)$ by using the adapted machinery of discrete Morse theory for acyclic complexes of tournaments. In the combinatorial side, we demonstrate that the dimension of the complex $Acy(T)$ has a role to play. …
We introduce the notion of combinatorial positivity of translation-invariant valuations on convex polytopes that extends the nonnegativity of Ehrhart h*-vectors. We give a surprisingly simple characterization of combinatorially positive valuations that implies Stanley's nonnegativity and monotonicity of h*-vectors and generalizes work of Beck et al. (2010) from solid-angle polynomials to all translation-invariant simple valuations. For general polytopes, this yields a new characterization of the volume as the unique combinatorially positive valuation up to scaling. For lattice polytopes our re…
Coloring games are combinatorial games where the players alternate painting uncolored vertices of a graph one of $k > 0$ colors. Each different ruleset specifies that game's coloring constraints. This paper investigates six impartial rulesets (five new), derived from previously-studied graph coloring schemes, including proper map coloring, oriented coloring, 2-distance coloring, weak coloring, and sequential coloring. For each, we study the outcome classes for special cases and general computational complexity. In some cases we pay special attention to the Grundy function.
Generalized permutahedra are a class of polytopes with many interesting combinatorial subclasses. We introduce pruned inside-out polytopes, a generalization of inside-out polytopes introduced by Beck--Zaslavsky (2006), which have many applications such as recovering the famous reciprocity result for graph colorings by Stanley. We study the integer point count of pruned inside-out polytopes by applying classical Ehrhart polynomials and Ehrhart-Macdonald reciprocity. This yields a geometric perspective on and a generalization of a combinatorial reciprocity theorem for generalized permutahedra by…
Message passing algorithms are popular in many combinatorial optimization problems. For example, experimental results show that {\em survey propagation} (a certain message passing algorithm) is effective in finding proper $k$-colorings of random graphs in the near-threshold regime. In 1962 Gallager introduced the concept of Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes, and suggested a simple decoding algorithm based on message passing. In 1994 Alon and Kahale exhibited a coloring algorithm and proved its usefulness for finding a $k$-coloring of graphs drawn from a certain planted-solution distributio…
A binomial coefficient identity due to Zhi-Wei Sun is the subject of half a dozen recent papers that prove it by various analytic techniques and establish a generalization. Here we give a simple proof that uses weight-reversing involutions on suitable configurations involving dominos and colorings. With somewhat more work, the method extends to the generalization also.
The field of descriptive combinatorics investigates the question, to what extent can classical combinatorial results and techniques be made topologically or measure-theoretically well-behaved? This paper examines a class of coloring problems induced by actions of countable groups on Polish spaces, with the requirement that the desired coloring be Baire measurable. We show that the set of all such coloring problems that admit a Baire measurable solution for a particular free action $α$ is complete analytic (apart from the trivial situation when the orbit equivalence relation induced by $α$ is s…
The main result provide a common generalization for Ramsey-type theorems concerning finite colorings of edge sets of complete graphs with vertices in infinite semigroups. We capture the essence of theorems proved in different fields: for natural numbers due to Milliken--Tylor, Deuber--Hindman, Bergelson--Hindman, for combinatorial covering properties due to Scheepers and Tsaban, and local properties in function spaces due to Scheepers. To this end, we use idempotent ultrafilters in the Čech--Stone compactifications of discrete infinite semigroups and topological games. The research is motivate…
Improving a result of Dyer, Frieze and Greenhill [Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series B, 2015], we determine the $q$-colorability threshold in random $k$-uniform hypergraphs up to an additive error of $\ln 2+\varepsilon_q$, where $\lim_{q\to\infty}\varepsilon_q=0$. The new lower bound on the threshold matches the "condensation phase transition" predicted by statistical physics considerations [Krzakala et al., PNAS 2007].
Let $R$ be a commutative ring with unity and $Z(R)$ and ${\rm Reg}(R)$ be the set of zero-divisors and non-zero zero-divisors of $R$, respectively. We denote by $T(Γ(R))$, the total graph of $R$, a simple graph with the vertex set $R$ and two distinct vertices $x$ and $y$ are adjacent if and only if $x+y\in Z(R)$. The induced subgraphs on $Z(R)$ and ${\rm Reg}(R)$ are denoted by $Z(Γ(R))$ and $Reg(Γ(R))$, respectively. These graphs were first introduced by D.F. Anderson and A. Badawi in 2008. In this paper, we prove the following result: let $R$ be a finite ring and one of the following condit…
In attempting to understand how combinatorial modifications alter algebraic properties of monomial ideals, several authors have investigated the process of adding "whiskers" to graphs. In this paper, we study a similar construction to build a simplicial complex $Δ_χ$ from a coloring $χ$ of a subset of the vertices of $Δ$, and give necessary and sufficient conditions for this construction to produce vertex decomposable simplicial complexes. We apply this work to strengthen and give new proofs about sequentially Cohen-Macaulay edge ideals of graphs.
As starting point, we formulate a corollary to the Quantitative Combinatorial Nullstellensatz. This corollary does not require the consideration of any coefficients of polynomials, only evaluations of polynomial functions. In certain situations, our corollary is more directly applicable and more ready-to-go than the Combinatorial Nullstellensatz itself. It is also of interest from a numerical point of view. We use it to explain a well-known connection between the sign of 1-factorizations (edge colorings) and the List Edge Coloring Conjecture. For efficient calculations and a better understandi…
By a well-known theorem of Thomassen and a planar graph depicted by Voigt, we know that every planar graph is $5$-choosable, and the bound is tight. In 1999, Lam, Xu and Liu reduced $5$ to $4$ on $C_4$-free planar graphs. In the paper, by applying the famous Combinatorial Nullstellensatz, we design an effective algorithm to deal with list coloring problems. At the same time, we prove that a planar graph $G$ is $4$-choosable if any two $4$-cycles having distance at least $5$ in $G$, which extends the result of Lam et al.
For a poset P, a subposet A, and an order preserving map F from A into the real numbers, the marked order polytope parametrizes the order preserving extensions of F to P. We show that the function counting integral-valued extensions is a piecewise polynomial in F and we prove a reciprocity statement in terms of order-reversing maps. We apply our results to give a geometric proof of a combinatorial reciprocity for monotone triangles due to Fischer and Riegler (2011) and we consider the enumerative problem of counting extensions of partial graph colorings of Herzberg and Murty (2007).
