English

A counterexample to a conjecture about triangle-free induced subgraphs of graphs with large chromatic number

Combinatorics 2022-09-16 v4

Abstract

We prove that for every nn, there is a graph GG with χ(G)n\chi(G) \geq n and ω(G)3\omega(G) \leq 3 such that every induced subgraph HH of GG with ω(H)2\omega(H) \leq 2 satisfies χ(H)4\chi(H) \leq 4. This disproves a well-known conjecture. Our construction is a digraph with bounded clique number, large dichromatic number, and no induced directed cycles of odd length at least 5.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2201.08204,
  title  = {A counterexample to a conjecture about triangle-free induced subgraphs of graphs with large chromatic number},
  author = {Alvaro Carbonero and Patrick Hompe and Benjamin Moore and Sophie Spirkl},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2201.08204},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

Accepted manuscript, see DOI for journal version