English

A note on Goldberg's conjecture on total chromatic numbers

Combinatorics 2021-09-17 v1

Abstract

Let G=(V(G),E(G))G=(V(G), E(G)) be a multigraph with maximum degree Δ(G)\Delta(G), chromatic index χ(G)\chi'(G) and total chromatic number χ(G)\chi''(G). The Total Coloring conjecture proposed by Behzad and Vizing, independently, states that χ(G)Δ(G)+μ(G)+1\chi''(G)\leq \Delta(G)+\mu(G) +1 for a multigraph GG, where μ(G)\mu(G) is the multiplicity of GG. Moreover, Goldberg conjectured that χ(G)=χ(G)\chi''(G)=\chi'(G) if χ(G)Δ(G)+3\chi'(G)\geq \Delta(G)+3 and noticed the conjecture holds when GG is an edge-chromatic critical graph. By assuming the Goldberg-Seymour conjecture, we show that χ(G)=χ(G)\chi''(G)=\chi'(G) if χ(G)max{Δ(G)+2,V(G)+1}\chi'(G)\geq \max\{ \Delta(G)+2, |V(G)|+1\} in this note. Consequently, χ(G)=χ(G)\chi''(G) = \chi'(G) if χ(G)Δ(G)+2\chi'(G) \ge \Delta(G) +2 and GG has a spanning edge-chromatic critical subgraph.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2109.07610,
  title  = {A note on Goldberg's conjecture on total chromatic numbers},
  author = {Yan Cao and Guantao Chen and Guangming Jing},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2109.07610},
  year   = {2021}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-24T06:00:27.536Z