English

Three-coloring triangle-free graphs on surfaces II. 4-critical graphs in a disk

Combinatorics 2017-07-07 v4 Discrete Mathematics

Abstract

Let G be a plane graph of girth at least five. We show that if there exists a 3-coloring phi of a cycle C of G that does not extend to a 3-coloring of G, then G has a subgraph H on O(|C|) vertices that also has no 3-coloring extending phi. This is asymptotically best possible and improves a previous bound of Thomassen. In the next paper of the series we will use this result and the attendant theory to prove a generalization to graphs on surfaces with several precolored cycles.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1302.2158,
  title  = {Three-coloring triangle-free graphs on surfaces II. 4-critical graphs in a disk},
  author = {Zdenek Dvorak and Daniel Kral and Robin Thomas},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1302.2158},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

48 pages, 4 figures This version: Revised according to reviewer comments

R2 v1 2026-06-21T23:23:28.163Z