Packing list‐colorings
List coloring is an influential and classic topic in graph theory. We initiate the study of a natural strengthening of this problem, where instead of one list‐coloring, we seek many in parallel. Our explorations have uncovered a potentially rich seam of interesting problems spanning chromatic graph...
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Veröffentlicht in: | Random structures & algorithms 2024-01, Vol.64 (1), p.62-93 |
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Sprache: | eng |
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Zusammenfassung: | List coloring is an influential and classic topic in graph theory. We initiate the study of a natural strengthening of this problem, where instead of one list‐coloring, we seek many in parallel. Our explorations have uncovered a potentially rich seam of interesting problems spanning chromatic graph theory. Given a k$$ k $$‐list‐assignment L$$ L $$ of a graph G$$ G $$, which is the assignment of a list L(v)$$ L(v) $$ of k$$ k $$ colors to each vertex v∈V(G)$$ v\in V(G) $$, we study the existence of k$$ k $$ pairwise‐disjoint proper colorings of G$$ G $$ using colors from these lists. We may refer to this as a list‐packing. Using a mix of combinatorial and probabilistic methods, we set out some basic upper bounds on the smallest k$$ k $$ for which such a list‐packing is always guaranteed, in terms of the number of vertices, the degeneracy, the maximum degree, or the (list) chromatic number of G$$ G $$. (The reader might already find it interesting that such a minimal k$$ k $$ is well defined.) We also pursue a more focused study of the case when G$$ G $$ is a bipartite graph. Our results do not yet rule out the tantalising prospect that the minimal k$$ k $$ above is not too much larger than the list chromatic number. Our study has taken inspiration from study of the strong chromatic number, and we also explore generalizations of the problem above in the same spirit. |
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ISSN: | 1042-9832 1098-2418 |
DOI: | 10.1002/rsa.21181 |