For each graph we construct graded cohomology groups whose graded Euler characteristic is the chromatic polynomial of the graph. We show the cohomology groups satisfy a long exact sequence which corresponds to the well-known deletion-contraction rule. This work is motivated by Khovanov's work on categorification of the Jones polynomial of knots.
Motivated by Khovanov homology and relations between the Jones polynomial and graph polynomials, we construct a homology theory for embedded graphs from which the chromatic polynomial can be recovered as the Euler characteristic. For plane graphs, we show that our chromatic homology can be recovered from the Khovanov homology of an associated link. We apply this connection with Khovanov homology to show that the torsion-free part of our chromatic homology is independent of the choice of planar embedding of a graph. We extend our construction and categorify the Bollobas-Riordan polynomial (a ge…
The Stanley chromatic symmetric function $X_G$ of a graph $G$ is a symmetric function generalization of the chromatic polynomial, and has interesting combinatorial properties. We apply the ideas of Khovanov homology to construct a homology of graded $S_n$-modules, whose graded Frobenius series $Frob_G(q,t)$ reduces to the chromatic symmetric function at $q=t=1$. This homology can be thought of as a categorification of the chromatic symmetric function, and provides a homological analogue of several familiar properties of $X_G$. In particular, the decomposition formula for $X_G$ discovered recen…
In this paper, for each graph $G$, we def\mbox{}ine a chain complex of graded modules over the ring of polynomials, whose graded Euler characteristic is equal to the chromatic polynomial of $G$. Furthermore, we def\mbox{}ine a chain complex of doubly-graded modules, whose (doubly) graded Euler characteristic is equal to the dichromatic polynomial of $G$. Both constructions use Koszul complexes, and are similar to the new Khovanov-Rozansky categorif\mbox{}ications of HOMFLYPT polynomial. We also give simplif\mbox{}ied def\mbox{}inition of this triply-graded link homology theory.
Two categorifications are given for the arrow polynomial, an extension of the Kauffman bracket polynomial for virtual knots. The arrow polynomial extends the bracket polynomial to infinitely many variables, each variable corresponding to an integer {\it arrow number} calculated from each loop in an oriented state summation for the bracket. The categorifications are based on new gradings associated with these arrow numbers, and give homology theories associated with oriented virtual knots and links via extra structure on the Khovanov chain complex. Applications are given to the estimation of vi…
For each graph and each positive integer $n$, we define a chain complex whose graded Euler characteristic is equal to an appropriate $n$-specialization of the dichromatic polynomial. This also gives a categorification of $n$-specializations of the Tutte polynomial of graphs. Also, for each graph and integer $n\le 2$, we define the different one variable $n$-specializations of the dichromatic polynomials, and for each polynomial we define graded chain complex whose graded Euler characteristic is equal to that polynomial. Furthermore, we explicitly categorify the specialization of the Tutte poly…
For each graph, we construct a bigraded chain complex whose graded Euler characteristic is a version of the Tutte polynomial. This work is motivated by earlier work of Khovanov, Helme-Guizon and Rong, and others.
In \cite{10.2140/agt.2005.5.1365}, Rong and Helme-Guizon defined a categorification for the chromatic polynomial $P_G(x)$ of graphs $G$, i.e. a homology theory $H^*(G)$ whose Euler characteristic equals $P_G(x)$. In this paper, we showed that the rational homoology $H^*(G;\mathbb{Q})$ is supported in two lines, and develop an analogy of Lee's theory for Khovanov homology. In particular, we develop a new homology theory $H_{Lee}(G)$, and showed that there is a spectral sequence whose $E_2$ -term is isomorphic to $H^*(G)$ converges to $H_{Lee}(G)$.
A categorification for the characteristic polynomial of matroids
Institute for Chemical Reaction Design and Discovery, Hokkaido University(北海道大学化学反应设计与发现研究所);Department of Applied Mathematics, Faculty of Science, Fukuoka University(福冈大学理学部应用数学系)
We obtain explicit branching rules for graded cell modules and graded simple modules over the endomorphism algebra of a Bott-Samelson bimodule. These rules allow us to categorify a well-known recursive formula for Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomials.
This paper describes how many known graph polynomials arise from the coefficients of chromatic symmetric function expansions in different bases, and studies a new polynomial arising by expanding over a basis given by chromatic symmetric functions of trees.
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…
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…
In this paper, we prove that $(-\infty, 0)$ is a zero-free interval for chromatic polynomials of a family ${\cal L}_0$ of hypergraphs and $(0, 1)$ is a zero-free interval for chromatic polynomials of a subfamily ${\cal L}_0'$ of ${\cal L}_0$ of hypergraphs. These results extend known results on zero-free intervals of chromatic polynomials of graphs and hypergraphs.
We use a polynomial decomposition result by Stapledon to show that the numerator polynomial of the Ehrhart series of an open polytope is the difference of two symmetric polynomials with nonnegative integer coefficients. We obtain a related decomposition for order polytopes and for the numerator polynomial of the corresponding series for chromatic polynomials. The nonnegativity of the coefficients in such decompositions provide inequalities satisfied by the coefficients of chromatic polynomials for any simple graph.
The chromatic polynomials are studied by several authors and have important applications in different frameworks, specially, in graph theory and enumerative combinatorics. The aim of this work is to establish some properties of the coefficients of the chromatic polynomial of a graph. Three applications on restricted Stirling numbers of the second kind are given.
We express the integral form Macdonald polynomials as a weighted sum of Shareshian and Wachs' chromatic quasisymmetric functions of certain graphs. Then we use known expansions of these chromatic quasisymmetric functions into Schur and power sum symmetric functions to provide Schur and power sum formulas for the integral form Macdonald polynomials. Since the (integral form) Jack polynomials are a specialization of integral form Macdonald polynomials, we obtain analogous formulas for Jack polynomials as corollaries.
The degree chromatic polynomial $Pm(G,k)$ of a graph $G$ counts the number of $k$-colorings in which no vertex has $m$ adjacent vertices of its same color. We prove Humpert and Martin's conjecture on the leading terms of the degree chromatic polynomial of a tree.
Some important properties of the chromatic polynomial also hold for any polynomial set map satisfying p_S(x+y)=\sum_{T\uplus U=S}p_T(x)p_U(y). Using umbral calculus, we give a formula for the expansion of such a set map in terms of any polynomial sequence of binomial type. This leads to some new expansions of the chromatic polynomial. We also describe a set map generalization of Abel polynomials.
Motivated by the study of Macdonald polynomials, J. Haglund and A. Wilson introduced a nonsymmetric polynomial analogue of the chromatic quasisymmetric function called the \emph{chromatic nonsymmetric polynomial} of a Dyck graph. We give a positive expansion for this polynomial in the basis of fundamental slide polynomials using recent work of Assaf-Bergeron on flagged $(P,ρ)$-partitions. We then derive the known expansion for the chromatic quasisymmetric function of Dyck graphs in terms of Gessel's fundamental basis by taking a backstable limit of our expansion.
In this paper, we consider multivariate hyperedge elimination polynomials and multivariate chromatic polynomials for hypergraphs. The first set of polynomials is defined in terms of a deletion-contraction-extraction recurrence, previously investigated for graphs by Averbouch, Godlin, and Makowsky. The multivariate chromatic polynomial is an equivalent polynomial defined in terms of colorings, and generalizes the coboundary polynomial of Crapo, and the bivariate chromatic polynomial of Dohmen, Pönitz and Tittman. We show that specializations of these new polynomials recover polynomials which en…
Let G be a graph, and let $χ$G be its chromatic polynomial. For any non-negative integers i, j, we give an interpretation for the evaluation $χ$ (i) G (--j) in terms of acyclic orientations. This recovers the classical interpretations due to Stanley and to Green and Zaslavsky respectively in the cases i = 0 and j = 0. We also give symmetric function refinements of our interpretations, and some extensions. The proofs use heap theory in the spirit of a 1999 paper of Gessel.
Chromatic polynomials have been studied extensively, giving us results such as the Fundamental Reduction Theorem and closed formulas for the chromatic polynomials of common classes of graphs. Though, none of those extend to the context of fractional colorings. We thus present closed formulas for the "fractional" chromatic polynomial - a function that counts the number of distinct $b$-fold $λ$-colorings on a given graph - of complete graphs, trees and forests, as well as a generalized form of the Fundamental Reduction Theorem.
We study the connections between link invariants, the chromatic polynomial, geometric representations of models of statistical mechanics, and their common underlying algebraic structure. We establish a relation between several algebras and their associated combinatorial and topological quantities. In particular, we define the chromatic algebra, whose Markov trace is the chromatic polynomial χ_Q of an associated graph, and we give applications of this new algebraic approach to the combinatorial properties of the chromatic polynomial. In statistical mechanics, this algebra occurs in the low temp…
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.
Stanley's symmetrized chromatic polynomial is a generalization of the ordinary chromatic polynomial to a graph invariant with values in a ring of polynomials in infnitely many variables. The ordinary chromatic polynomial is a specialization of the Stanley's one. Our goal is to extend Stanley's chromatic polynomial to embedded graphs. In contrast to well-known extensions of, say, the Tutte polynomial from abstract to embedded graphs [5], we do not treat an embedded graph as an abstract graph endowed with additional information about the embedding. Instead, we consider the binary delta-matroid a…
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…
We study "holomorphic quadratic differentials" on graphs. We relate them to the reactive power in an LC circuit, and also to the chromatic polynomial of a graph. Specifically, we show that the chromatic polynomial $χ$ of a graph $G$, at negative integer values, can be evaluated as the degree of a certain rational mapping, arising from the defining equations for a holomorphic quadratic differential. This allows us to give an explicit integral expression for $χ(-k)$.
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…
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 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…
Zaslavsky proved in 2012 that, up to switching isomorphism, there are six different signed Petersen graphs and that they could be told apart by their chromatic polynomials, by showing that the latter give distinct results when evaluated at 3. He conjectured that the six different signed Petersen graphs also have distinct zero-free chromatic polynomials, and that both types of chromatic polynomials have distinct evaluations at \emph{any} positive integer. We developed and executed a computer program (running in {\tt SAGE}) that efficiently determines the number of proper $k$-colorings for a giv…
We define the acyclic orientation polynomial of a graph to be the generating function for the sinks of its acyclic orientations. Stanley proved that the number of acyclic orientations is equal to the chromatic polynomial evaluated at $-1$ up to sign. Motivated by this link between acyclic orientations and the chromatic polynomial, we develop "acyclic orientation" analogues of theorems concerning the chromatic polynomial of Birkhoff, Whitney, and Greene-Zaslavsky. As an application, we provide a new proof for Stanley's sink theorem for chromatic symmetric functions $X_G$. This theorem gives a r…
For $m \geq 3$ and $n \geq 1$, the $m$-cycle book graph $B(m,n)$ consists of $n$ copies of the cycle $C_m$ with one common edge. In this paper, we prove that (a) the number of switching non-isomorphic signed $B(m,n)$ is $n+1$, and (b) the chromatic number of a signed $B(m,n)$ is either 2 or 3. We also obtain explicit formulas for the chromatic polynomials and the zero-free chromatic polynomials of switching non-isomorphic signed book graphs.
In 2015, Matthias Beck and his team developed a computer program in SAGE which efficiently determines the number of signed proper $k$-colorings for a given signed graph. In this article, we determine the number of different signatures on Book graph up to switching isomorphisms. We also find a recursive formula of the signed chromatic polynomials of signed Book graphs.
In recent years we have worked on a project involving poset topology, various analogues of Eulerian polynomials, and a refinement of Richard Stanley's chromatic symmetric function. Here we discuss how Stanley's ideas and results have influenced and inspired our own work.
In this paper we prove the knight move theorem for the chromatic graph cohomologies with rational coefficients introduced by L. Helme-Guizon and Y. Rong. Namely, for a connected graph G with n vertices the only non-trivial cohomology groups $H^{i,n-i}(G)$, $H^{i,n-i-1}(G)$ come in isomorphic pairs: $H^{i,n-i}(G)\cong H^{i+1,n-i-2}(G)$ for i >= 0 if G is non-bipartite, and for i > 0 if G is bipartite. As a corollary, the ranks of the cohomology groups are determined by the chromatic polynomial. At the end, we give an explicit formula for the Poincare polynomial in terms of the chromatic polynom…
We use a Dyck path model for unit-interval graphs to study the chromatic quasisymmetric functions introduced by Shareshian and Wachs, as well as vertical strip --- in particular, unicellular LLT polynomials. We show that there are parallel phenomena regarding $e$-positivity of these two families of polynomials. In particular, we give several examples where the LLT polynomials behave like a "mirror image" of the chromatic quasisymmetric counterpart. The Dyck path model is also extended to circular arc digraphs to obtain larger families of polynomials. This circular extensions of LLT polynomials…
An acyclic coloring of a digraph as defined by Neumann-Lara is a vertex-coloring such that no monochromatic directed cycles occur. Counting the number of such colorings with $k$ colors can be done by counting so-called Neumann-Lara-coflows (NL-coflows), which build a polynomial in $k$. We will present a representation of this polynomial using totally cyclic subdigraphs, which form a graded poset $Q$. Furthermore we will decompose our NL-coflow polynomial, which becomes the chromatic polynomial of a digraph by multiplication with the number of colors to the number of components, examining the s…
We establish closed-form expansions for the number of colorings of a path or cycle on n vertices with colors from 1,...,x such that adjacent vertices are colored differently or with colors from y+1,...x.
We study Dohmen--Pönitz--Tittmann's bivariate chromatic polynomial $c_Γ(k,l)$ which counts all $(k+l)$-colorings of a graph $Γ$ such that adjacent vertices get different colors if they are $\le k$. Our first contribution is an extension of $c_Γ(k,l)$ to signed graphs, for which we obtain an inclusion--exclusion formula and several special evaluations giving rise, e.g., to polynomials that encode balanced subgraphs. Our second goal is to derive combinatorial reciprocity theorems for $c_Γ(k,l)$ and its signed-graph analogues, reminiscent of Stanley's reciprocity theorem linking chromatic polynom…
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…
Stanley in his paper [Stanley, Richard P.: Acyclic orientations of graphs In: Discrete Mathematics 5 (1973), Nr. 2, S. 171-178.] provided interpretations of the chromatic polynomial when it is substituted with negative integers. Greene and Zaslavsky interpreted the coefficients of the chromatic polynomial in [Greene, Curtis ; Zaslavsky, Thomas: On the interpretation of Whitney numbers through arrangements of hyperplanes, zonotopes, non-Radon partitions, and orientations of graphs. In: Transactions of the American Mathematical Society 280 (1983), jan, Nr. 1, S. 97-97.]. We shall develop an invo…
In this paper, we propose an algebraic approach to determine whether two non-isomorphic caterpillar trees can have the same symmetric function generalization of the chromatic polynomial. On the set of all composition on integers, we introduce: An operation, which we call composition product; and a combinatorial polynomial, which we call the composition-lattice polynomial or L-polynomial, that mimics the weighted graph polynomial of Noble and Welsh. We prove a unique irreducible factorization theorem and establish a connection between the L-polynomial of a composition and its irreducible factor…
The main result of this paper is the introduction of marked graphs and the marked graph polynomials ($M$-polynomial) associated with them. These polynomials can be defined via a deletion-contraction operation. These polynomials are a generalization of the $W$-polynomial introduced by Noble and Welsh and a specialization of the $\mathbf{V}$-polynomial introduced by Ellis-Monaghan and Moffatt. In addition, we describe an important specialization of the $M$-polynomial which we call the $D$-polynomial. Furthermore, we give an efficient algorithm for computing the chromatic symmetric function of a …
A graph G is H-free if it has no induced subgraph isomorphic to H. We prove that a $P_5$-free graph with clique number $ω\ge 3$ has chromatic number at most $ω^{\log_2(ω)}$. The best previous result was an exponential upper bound $(5/27)3^ω$, due to Esperet, Lemoine, Maffray, and Morel. A polynomial bound would imply that the celebrated Erdos-Hajnal conjecture holds for $P_5$, which is the smallest open case. Thus there is great interest in whether there is a polynomial bound for $P_5$-free graphs, and our result is an attempt to approach that.
A famous and wide-open problem, going back to at least the early 1970's, concerns the classification of chromatic polynomials of graphs. Toward this classification problem, one may ask for necessary inequalities among the coefficients of a chromatic polynomial, and we contribute such inequalities when a chromatic polynomial $χ_G(n) = χ^*_0 \binom {n+d} d + χ^*_1 \binom {n+d-1} d + \dots + χ^*_d \binom n d$ is written in terms of a binomial-coefficient basis. For example, we show that $χ^*_{ j } \le χ^*_{ d-j }$, for $0 \le j \le \frac{ d }{ 2 }$. Similar results hold for flow and tension polyn…
In this work, we generalize and utilize the linear relations of LLT polynomials introduced by Lee \cite{Lee}. By using the fact that the chromatic quasisymmetric functions and the unicellular LLT polynomials are related via plethystic substitution and thus they satisfy the same linear relations, we can apply the linear relations to both sets of functions. As a result, in the chromatic quasisymmetric function side, we find a class of $e$-positive graphs, called \emph{melting lollipop graphs}, and explicitly prove the $e$-unimodality. In the unicellular LLT side, we obtain Schur expansion formul…