Related papers: Complexity of $C_k$-coloring in hereditary classes…

In the $\ell$-Coloring Problem, we are given a graph on $n$ nodes, and tasked with determining if its vertices can be properly colored using $\ell$ colors. In this paper we study below-guarantee graph coloring, which tests whether an…

A {\em hole} is an induced cycle of length at least 4, a $k$-hole is a hole of length $k$, and an {\em odd hole} is a hole of odd length. Let $\ell\ge 2$ be an integer. Let ${\cal A}_{\ell}$ be the family of graphs of girth at least $2\ell$…

We consider extremal edge-coloring problems inspired by the theory of anti-Ramsey / rainbow coloring, and further by odd-colorings and conflict-free colorings. Let $G$ be a graph, and $F$ any given family of graphs. For every integer $n…

We give a short, self-contained, and easily verifiable proof that determining the outerthickness of a general graph is NP-hard. This resolves a long-standing open problem on the computational complexity of outerthickness. Moreover, our…

We define a perfect coloring of a graph $G$ as a proper coloring of $G$ such that every connected induced subgraph $H$ of $G$ uses exactly $\omega(H)$ many colors where $\omega(H)$ is the clique number of $H$. A graph is perfectly colorable…

We study the structure learning problem for $H$-colorings, an important class of Markov random fields that capture key combinatorial structures on graphs, including proper colorings and independent sets, as well as spin systems from…

Clique-width is an important graph parameter due to its algorithmic and structural properties. A graph class is hereditary if it can be characterized by a (not necessarily finite) set ${\cal H}$ of forbidden induced subgraphs. We initiate a…

A proper coloring $c$ of a simple graph $G$ is harmonious if, for every pair of distinct edges $uv,xy\in E(G)$, we have that $\{c(u),c(v)\}\neq \{c(x),c(y)\}$. The harmonious chromatic number of $G$, denoted by $h(G)$, is the least positive…

A partition $(V_1,\ldots,V_k)$ of the vertex set of a graph $G$ with a (not necessarily proper) colouring $c$ is colourful if no two vertices in any $V_i$ have the same colour and every set $V_i$ induces a connected graph. The COLOURFUL…

A graph $G$ is {\em $k$-choosable} if for every assignment of a set $S(v)$ of $k$ colors to every vertex $v$ of $G$, there is a proper coloring of $G$ that assigns to each vertex $v$ a color from $S(v)$. We consider the complexity of…

The cyclability of a graph is the maximum integer $k$ for which every $k$ vertices lie on a cycle. The algorithmic version of the problem, given a graph $G$ and a non-negative integer $k,$ decide whether the cyclability of $G$ is at least…

Motivated by the analogous questions in graphs, we study the complexity of coloring and stable set problems in hypergraphs with forbidden substructures and bounded edge size. Letting $\nu(G)$ denote the maximum size of a matching in $H$, we…

The chromatic number of a graph is the minimum $k$ such that the graph has a proper $k$-coloring. There are many coloring parameters in the literature that are proper colorings that also forbid bicolored subgraphs. Some examples are…

We study the complexity of the problems of finding, given a graph $G$, a largest induced subgraph of $G$ with all degrees odd (called an odd subgraph), and the smallest number of odd subgraphs that partition $V(G)$. We call these parameters…

The $\mathcal{H}$-coloring problem for undirected simple graphs is a computational problem from a huge class of the constraint satisfaction problems (CSP): an $\mathcal{H}$-coloring of a graph $\mathcal{G}$ is just a homomorphism from…

For graphs $G$ and $H$, an {\em $H$-colouring} of $G$ (or {\em homomorphism} from $G$ to $H$) is a function from the vertices of $G$ to the vertices of $H$ that preserves adjacency. $H$-colourings generalize such graph theory notions as…

A graph $G$ is $k$-vertex-critical if $\chi(G) = k$ but $\chi(G-v)<k$ for all $v \in V(G)$. A graph is $(H_1,H_2)$-free if it contains no induced subgraph isomorphic to $H_1$ nor $H_2$. A $W_4$ is the graph consisting of a $C_4$ plus an…

A balanced colouring of a graph is one in which every colour appears the same number of times. Given a fixed graph $H$ on $r$ vertices and a balanced $k$-colouring of the complete graph $K_{nrk}$, Hollom (2025) asked the following question:…

The NP-complete problem Matching Cut is to decide if a graph has a matching that is also an edge cut of the graph. We prove new complexity results for Matching Cut restricted to $H$-free graphs, that is, graphs that do not contain some…

A conflict-free $k$-coloring of a graph $G=(V,E)$ assigns one of $k$ different colors to some of the vertices such that, for every vertex $v$, there is a color that is assigned to exactly one vertex among $v$ and $v$'s neighbors. Such…