English

The chromatic number of 2-edge-colored and signed graphs of bounded maximum degree

Combinatorics 2020-09-14 v1 Discrete Mathematics

Abstract

A 2-edge-colored graph or a signed graph is a simple graph with two types of edges. A homomorphism from a 2-edge-colored graph GG to a 2-edge-colored graph HH is a mapping φ:V(G)V(H)\varphi: V(G) \rightarrow V(H) that maps every edge in GG to an edge of the same type in HH. Switching a vertex vv of a 2-edge-colored or signed graph corresponds to changing the type of each edge incident to vv. There is a homomorphism from the signed graph GG to the signed graph HH if after switching some subset of the vertices of GG there is a 2-edge-colored homomorphism from GG to HH. The chromatic number of a 2-edge-colored (resp. signed) graph GG is the order of a smallest 2-edge-colored (resp. signed) graph HH such that there is a homomorphism from GG to HH. The chromatic number of a class of graph is the maximum of the chromatic numbers of the graphs in the class. We study the chromatic numbers of 2-edge-colored and signed graphs (connected and not necessarily connected) of a given bounded maximum degree. More precisely, we provide exact bounds for graphs of maximum degree 2. We then propose specific lower and upper bounds for graphs of maximum degree 3, 4, and 5. We finally propose general bounds for graphs of maximum degree kk, for every kk.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2009.05439,
  title  = {The chromatic number of 2-edge-colored and signed graphs of bounded maximum degree},
  author = {Christopher Duffy and Fabien Jacques and Mickael Montassier and Alexandre Pinlou},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2009.05439},
  year   = {2020}
}