Kempe changes in $H$-free graphs
Abstract
Given a -colouring of a graph and two of the colours, a is a connected component of the subgraph of induced by the vertices coloured with one of these two colours. A changes one colouring into another by interchanging the colours of the vertices in a Kempe chain. Two colourings are if each can be obtained from the other by a series of Kempe swaps; the set of Kempe equivalent colourings is called a . For a graph , let denote its chromatic number and let denote the set of all -colourings of . We say is if for all , forms a Kempe class. For a graph , graph is called - if no induced subgraph of is isomorphic to . We prove that every -free graph is Kempe connected if and only if is an induced subgraph of the path on four vertices, . The graph 2 consists of four vertices and two edges which are not adjacent. We prove that for all , there is a -colourable 2-free graph such that does not form a Kempe class.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2512.00695,
title = {Kempe changes in $H$-free graphs},
author = {Manoj Belavadi and Kathie Cameron},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.00695},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
11 pages