English

Local girth choosability of planar graphs

Combinatorics 2022-12-12 v3

Abstract

In 1994, Thomassen famously proved that every planar graph is 5-choosable, resolving a conjecture initially posed by Vizing and, independently, Erd\H{os}, Rubin, and Taylor in the 1970s. Later, Thomassen proved that every planar graph of girth at least five is 3-choosable. In this paper, we introduce the concept of a \emph{local girth list assignment}: a list assignment wherein the list size of a vertex depends not on the girth of the graph, but rather on the length of the shortest cycle in which the vertex is contained. We give a local list colouring theorem unifying the two theorems of Thomassen mentioned above. In particular, we show that if GG is a planar graph and LL is a list assignment for GG such that L(v)3|L(v)| \geq 3 for all vV(G)v \in V(G); L(v)4|L(v)| \geq 4 for every vertex vv contained in a 4-cycle; and L(v)5|L(v)| \geq 5 for every vv contained in a triangle, then GG admits an LL-colouring.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2108.03315,
  title  = {Local girth choosability of planar graphs},
  author = {Luke Postle and Evelyne Smith-Roberge},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2108.03315},
  year   = {2022}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-24T04:54:13.643Z