Complexity of Near-3-Choosability Problem

It is currently an unsolved problem to determine whether, for every 2-list assignment L of a ▵ -free planar graph G , there exists an independent set A L such that G [ V G \ A L ] is L -colorable. However, in this paper, we take a slightly different approach to the above problem. We prove the N P -completeness of the decision problem of determining an independent set A such that G [ V G \ A ] is 2-choosable for ▵ -free, 4-colorable graphs of diameter 3. Building upon this notion, we examine the computational complexity of two optimization problems: minimum near-3-choosability and minimum 2-choosable-edge-deletion. In the former problem, the goal is to find an independent set A of minimum size in a given graph G , such that the induced subgraph G [ V G \ A ] is 2-choosable. We establish that this problem is N P -hard to approximate within a factor of | V G | 1 - ϵ for any ϵ > 0 , for planar bipartite graphs of arbitrary large girth. On the other hand, the problem of minimum 2-choosable-edge-deletion involves determining an edge set F ⊆ E G of minimum cardinality such that the spanning subgraph G [ E G \ F ] is 2-choosable. We prove that this problem can be approximated within a factor of O ( log | V G | ) .