English

Online Graph Coloring with Predictions

Data Structures and Algorithms 2023-12-04 v1

Abstract

We introduce learning augmented algorithms to the online graph coloring problem. Although the simple greedy algorithm FirstFit is known to perform poorly in the worst case, we are able to establish a relationship between the structure of any input graph GG that is revealed online and the number of colors that FirstFit uses for GG. Based on this relationship, we propose an online coloring algorithm FirstFitPredictions that extends FirstFit while making use of machine learned predictions. We show that FirstFitPredictions is both \emph{consistent} and \emph{smooth}. Moreover, we develop a novel framework for combining online algorithms at runtime specifically for the online graph coloring problem. Finally, we show how this framework can be used to robustify by combining it with any classical online coloring algorithm (that disregards the predictions).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2312.00601,
  title  = {Online Graph Coloring with Predictions},
  author = {Antonios Antoniadis and Hajo Broersma and Yang Meng},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2312.00601},
  year   = {2023}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T13:38:24.213Z