English

On Induced Colourful Paths in Triangle-free Graphs

Combinatorics 2019-01-21 v2

Abstract

Given a graph G=(V,E)G=(V,E) whose vertices have been properly coloured, we say that a path in GG is "colourful" if no two vertices in the path have the same colour. It is a corollary of the Gallai-Roy-Vitaver Theorem that every properly coloured graph contains a colourful path on χ(G)\chi(G) vertices. We explore a conjecture that states that every properly coloured triangle-free graph GG contains an induced colourful path on χ(G)\chi(G) vertices and prove its correctness when the girth of GG is at least χ(G)\chi(G). Recent work on this conjecture by Gy\'arf\'as and S\'ark\"ozy, and Scott and Seymour has shown the existence of a function ff such that if χ(G)f(k)\chi(G)\geq f(k), then an induced colourful path on kk vertices is guaranteed to exist in any properly coloured triangle-free graph GG.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1604.06070,
  title  = {On Induced Colourful Paths in Triangle-free Graphs},
  author = {Jasine Babu and Manu Basavaraju and L. Sunil Chandran and Mathew C. Francis},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.06070},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

8 pages, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T13:37:07.633Z