English

Reconstructing a graph from its Bell colouring graph

Combinatorics 2026-04-15 v1

Abstract

The Bell colouring graph B(G)\mathcal{B}(G) of a graph GG is the graph whose vertices are the partitions of the vertex set of GG into independent sets, with an edge between two partitions if and only if one can be obtained from the other by changing the part of a single vertex of GG. Given a natural number kk, the Bell kk-colouring graph Bk(G)\mathcal{B}_k(G) and the upper-Bell kk-colouring graph Bk(G)\mathcal{B}_{\geq k}(G) are the induced subgraphs of B(G)\mathcal{B}(G) consisting of all partitions with at most kk parts and at least kk parts, respectively. We determine precisely when two finite graphs have isomorphic Bell colouring graphs. In particular, we show that every nn-vertex graph GG with no vertices of degree n1n-1 is uniquely determined by its Bell colouring graph B(G)\mathcal{B}(G), and by its upper-Bell colouring graph Bk(G)\mathcal{B}_{\geq k}(G) if kn2k\leq n-2. We also show that every nn-vertex graph with maximum degree Δ(G)<19n13\Delta(G)< \frac{1}{9}n-\frac{1}{3} is uniquely determined by its Bell kk-colouring graph Bk(G)\mathcal{B}_k(G) if k>χ(G)k>\chi(G). By taking graph complements, each of these results can be restated in terms of partitions into cliques.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.13005,
  title  = {Reconstructing a graph from its Bell colouring graph},
  author = {Brian Hearn},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.13005},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

34 pages, 5 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T12:09:17.825Z