English

A note on the simultaneous edge coloring

Combinatorics 2020-01-07 v1 Discrete Mathematics

Abstract

Let G=(V,E)G=(V,E) be a graph. A (proper) kk-edge-coloring is a coloring of the edges of GG such that any pair of edges sharing an endpoint receive distinct colors. A classical result of Vizing ensures that any simple graph GG admits a (Δ(G)+1)(\Delta(G)+1)-edge coloring where Δ(G)\Delta(G) denotes the maximum degreee of GG. Recently, Cabello raised the following question: given two graphs G1,G2G_1,G_2 of maximum degree Δ\Delta on the same set of vertices VV, is it possible to edge-color their (edge) union with Δ+2\Delta+2 colors in such a way the restriction of GG to respectively the edges of G1G_1 and the edges of G2G_2 are edge-colorings? More generally, given \ell graphs, how many colors do we need to color their union in such a way the restriction of the coloring to each graph is proper? In this short note, we prove that we can always color the union of the graphs G1,,GG_1,\ldots,G_\ell of maximum degree Δ\Delta with Ω(Δ)\Omega(\sqrt{\ell} \cdot \Delta) colors and that there exist graphs for which this bound is tight up to a constant multiplicative factor. Moreover, for two graphs, we prove that at most 32Δ+4\frac 32 \Delta +4 colors are enough which is, as far as we know, the best known upper bound.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2001.01463,
  title  = {A note on the simultaneous edge coloring},
  author = {Nicolas Bousquet and Bastien Durain},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.01463},
  year   = {2020}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T13:03:39.703Z