English

Proper edge colorings of planar graphs with rainbow $C_4$-s

Combinatorics 2025-09-03 v2

Abstract

We call a proper edge coloring of a graph GG a B-coloring if every 4-cycle of GG is colored with four different colors. Let qB(G)q_B(G) denote the smallest number of colors needed for a B-coloring of GG. Motivated by earlier papers on B-colorings, here we consider qB(G)q_B(G) for planar and outerplanar graphs in terms of the maximum degree Δ=Δ(G)\Delta = \Delta(G). We prove that qB(G)2Δ+8q_B(G)\le 2\Delta+8 for planar graphs, qB(G)2Δq_B(G)\le 2\Delta for bipartite planar graphs and qB(G)Δ+1q_B(G)\le \Delta+1 for outerplanar graphs with Δ4\Delta \ge 4. We conjecture that, for Δ\Delta sufficiently large, qB(G)2Δ(G)q_B(G)\le 2\Delta(G) for planar GG and qB(G)Δ(G)q_B(G)\le \Delta(G) for outerplanar GG.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2408.09059,
  title  = {Proper edge colorings of planar graphs with rainbow $C_4$-s},
  author = {András Gyárfás and Ryan R. Martin and Miklós Ruszinkó and Gábor N. Sárközy},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2408.09059},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

The previous version of this manuscript had an error in the proof of Theorem 1.4(i). This error is corrected in the new version