English

On 3-colorability of (claw, diamond)-free graphs

Combinatorics 2026-02-10 v1

Abstract

The 33-colorability problem is a well-known NP-complete problem and it remains NP-complete for (claw,diamond,K4)(claw, diamond, K_4)-free graphs. Recently, 33-colorability has been also considered for (claw,N1,1,1)(claw, N_{1,1,1})-free graphs. Here, a generalised net Ni,j,kN_{i, j, k} is the graph obtained by identifying each vertex of a triangle with an endvertex of one of three vetex-disjont paths of lengths i,j,ki, j, k. We study the class of (claw,diamond,Ni,j,k)(claw, diamond, N_{i, j, k})-free graphs for (i,j,k){(1,1,3),(i, j, k) \in \{(1, 1, 3), (1,2,2), (1, 2, 2), (2,2,2)}(2, 2, 2) \}. We show that these graphs are 33-colorable or contain a K4K_4 or belong to some well-defined class of non 33-colorable graphs. Moreover, we prove that there are only finitely many non 33-colorable N1,2,kN_{1, 2, k}-free graphs for any k2k \geq 2, but there exist infinitely many non 33-colorable Ni,j,kN_{i, j, k}-free graphs for any 2ijk.2 \leq i \leq j \leq k.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.07229,
  title  = {On 3-colorability of (claw, diamond)-free graphs},
  author = {Nadzieja Hodur and Monika Pilśniak and Magdalena Prorok and Ingo Schiermeyer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.07229},
  year   = {2026}
}