English

The strong fractional choice number of triangle-free planar graphs

Combinatorics 2026-02-17 v1

Abstract

Let a,ba,b be positive integers with aba\ge b. A graph GG is (a,b)(a,b)-choosable if, for every assignment of lists L(v)L(v) of size aa to the vertices of GG, there exists a choice of subsets C(v)L(v)C(v)\subseteq L(v) with C(v)=b|C(v)|=b for each vv such that C(u)C(v)=C(u)\cap C(v)=\emptyset whenever uvE(G)uv\in E(G). We show that every triangle-free planar graph is (15m,4m)(15m,4m)-choosable for any positive integer mm. As an immediate consequence, the strong fractional choice number of triangle-free planar graphs is at most 15/415/4. This appears to be the first non-trivial upper bound on this parameter for this class of graphs. In particular, the case m=1m=1 answers affirmatively a question posed by Jiang and Zhu in [J.~Combin.\ Theory Ser.~B, 2019].

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.13970,
  title  = {The strong fractional choice number of triangle-free planar graphs},
  author = {Xiaolan Hu and Rongxing Xu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.13970},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

30 pages