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We provide a formula for every Schur coefficient in the chromatic symmetric function of a graph in terms of special rim hook tabloids. This formula is useful in confirming the non-Schur positivity of the chromatic symmetric function of a…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2020-01-17 David G. L. Wang , Monica M. Y. Wang

In 1995 Stanley conjectured that the chromatic symmetric functions of the graphs $P_{d,2}$, which we call triangular ladders, were $e$-positive. In this paper we confirm this conjecture, which is also an unsolved case of the celebrated…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-07-02 Samantha Dahlberg

Let $T$ be an unrooted tree. The \emph{chromatic symmetric function} $X_T$, introduced by Stanley, is a sum of monomial symmetric functions corresponding to proper colorings of $T$. The \emph{subtree polynomial} $S_T$, first considered…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2011-10-05 Jeremy L. Martin , Matthew Morin , Jennifer D. Wagner

In Stanley's seminal 1995 paper on the chromatic symmetric function, he stated that there was no known graph that was not contractible to the claw and whose chromatic symmetric function was not $e$-positive, namely, not a positive linear…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2020-05-21 Samantha Dahlberg , Angele Foley , Stephanie van Willigenburg

A well-known result of Stanley's shows that given a graph $G$ with chromatic symmetric function expanded into the basis of elementary symmetric functions as $X_G = \sum c_{\lambda}e_{\lambda}$, the sum of the coefficients $c_{\lambda}$ for…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-05-16 Logan Crew , Yongxing Zhang

We introduce path-conjoined graphs defined for two rooted graphs by joining their roots with a path, and investigate the chromatic symmetric functions of its two generalizations: spider-conjoined graphs and chain-conjoined graphs. By using…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-02-04 E. Y. J. Qi , D. Q. B. Tang , D. G. L. Wang

We define a new type of vertex coloring which generalizes vertex coloring in graphs, hypergraphs, and simplicial complexes. This coloring also generalizes oriented coloring, acyclic coloring, and star coloring. There is an associated…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2020-01-22 John Machacek

We discover new linear relations between the chromatic symmetric functions of certain sequences of graphs and apply these relations to find new families of e-positive unit interval graphs. Motivated by the results of Gebhard and Sagan, we…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-12-24 Farid Aliniaeifard , Victor Wang , Stephanie van Willigenburg

A famous conjecture of Stanley states that his chromatic symmetric function distinguishes trees. As a quasisymmetric analogue, we conjecture that the chromatic quasisymmetric function of Shareshian and Wachs and of Ellzey distinguishes…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-12-09 Jean-Christophe Aval , Karimatou Djenabou , Peter R. W. McNamara

A graph $G=(V,E)$ is strongly antimagic, if there is a bijective mapping $f: E \to \{1,2,\ldots,|E|\}$ such that for any two vertices $u\neq v$, not only $\sum_{e \in E(u)}f(e) \ne \sum_{e\in E(v)}f(e)$ and also $\sum_{e \in E(u)}f(e) <…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2017-12-29 Fei-Huang Chang , Pinhui Chin , Wei-Tian Li , Zhishi Pan

One of the major outstanding conjectures in the study of chromatic symmetric functions (CSF's) states that trees are uniquely determined by their CSF's. Though verified on graphs of order up to twenty-nine, this result has been proved only…

A MacMahon symmetric function is an invariant of the diagonal action of the symmetric group on power series in multiple alphabets of variables. We introduce an analogue of the chromatic symmetric function for vertex-weighted graphs, taking…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-08-04 Jeremy L. Martin , May B. Trist

The Erd\"os-S\'os conjecture states that if $G$ is a graph with average degree more than $k-1$, then G contains every tree of $k$ edges. A spider is a tree with at most one vertex of degree more than 2. In this paper, we prove that…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-12-02 Genghua Fan , Yanmei Hong , Qinghai Liu

As introduced by Gutman and Harary, the independence polynomial of a graph serves as the generating polynomial of its independent sets. In 1987, Alavi, Malde, Schwenk and Erd\H{o}s conjectured that the independence polynomials of all trees…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-01-09 Ethan Y. H. Li , Grace M. X. Li , Arthur L. B. Yang , Zhong-Xue Zhang

We prove some Schur positivity results for the chromatic symmetric function $X_G$ of a (hyper)graph $G$, using connections to the group algebra of the symmetric group. The first such connection works for (hyper)forests $F$: we describe the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-10-29 Brendan Pawlowski

Stanley introduced the chromatic symmetric function of a simple graph, which is a generalization of a chromatic polynomial. This is expressed in terms of the integer points of the complements of the corresponding graphic arrangement.…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-03-05 Masamichi Kuroda , Shuhei Tsujie

The degree chromatic polynomial $Pm(G,k)$ of a graph $G$ counts the number of $k$-colorings in which no vertex has $m$ adjacent vertices of its same color. We prove Humpert and Martin's conjecture on the leading terms of the degree…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2014-10-20 Diego Cifuentes

A class of graphs is $\chi$-bounded if there is a function $f$ such that every graph $G$ in the class has chromatic number at most $f(\omega(G))$, where $\omega(G)$ is the clique number of $G$; the class is polynomially $\chi$-bounded if…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-03-24 Maria Chudnovsky , Alex Scott , Paul Seymour , Sophie Spirkl

We investigate the problem of when a chromatic quasisymmetric function (CQF) $X_G(x;q)$ of a graph $G$ is in fact symmetric. We first prove the remarkable fact that if a product of two quasisymmetric functions $f$ and $g$ in countably…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-08-04 Maria Gillespie , Joseph Pappe , Kyle Salois

The operation of twinning a graph at a vertex was introduced by Foley, Ho\`ang, and Merkel (2019), who conjectured that twinning preserves $e$-positivity of the chromatic symmetric function. A counterexample to this conjecture was given by…