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This is the second paper in a series of two. The goal of the series is to give a polynomial time algorithm for the $4$-coloring problem and the $4$-precoloring extension problem restricted to the class of graphs with no induced six-vertex…
Let $P_n$ denote the undirected path of length $n-1$. The cardinality of the set of congruence classes induced by the graph homomorphisms from $P_n$ onto $P_k$ is determined. This settles an open problem of Michels and Knauer (Disc. Math.,…
Finding a simple path of even length between two designated vertices in a directed graph is a fundamental NP-complete problem known as the EvenPath problem. Nedev proved in 1999, that for directed planar graphs, the problem can be solved in…
The pre-coloring extension problem consists, given a graph $G$ and a subset of nodes to which some colors are already assigned, in finding a coloring of $G$ with the minimum number of colors which respects the pre-coloring assignment. This…
A general novel approach mapping discrete, combinatorial, graph-theoretic problems onto ``physical'' models - namely $n$ simplexes in $n-1$ dimensions - is applied to the graph equivalence problem. It is shown to solve this long standing…
Path graphs are intersection graphs of paths in a tree. We start from the characterization of path graphs by Monma and Wei [C.L.~Monma,~and~V.K.~Wei, Intersection Graphs of Paths in a Tree, J. Combin. Theory Ser. B, 41:2 (1986) 141--181]…
A synchronizing word of a deterministic automaton is a word in the alphabet of colors of its edges that maps the automaton to a single state. A coloring of edges of a directed graph is synchronizing if the coloring turns the graph into a…
Uncover the vertices of a given graph, deterministic or random, in random order; we consider both a discrete-time and a continuous-time version. We study the evolution of the number of visible edges, and show convergence after normalization…
We study the behavior of the Douglas-Rachford algorithm on the graph vertex-coloring problem. Given a graph and a number of colors, the goal is to find a coloring of the vertices so that all adjacent vertex pairs have different colors. In…
The determination of the computational complexity of multi-agent pathfinding on directed graphs has been an open problem for many years. For undirected graphs, solvability can be decided in polynomial time, as has been shown already in the…
Many applications in graph theory are motivated by routing or flow problems. Among these problems is Steiner Orientation: given a mixed graph G (having directed and undirected edges) and a set T of k terminal pairs in G, is there an…
In the deletion version of the list homomorphism problem, we are given graphs G and H, a list L(v) that is a subset of V(H) for each vertex v of G, and an integer k. The task is to decide whether there exists a subset W of V(G) of size at…
This paper develops a harmonic Galois theory for finite graphs, thereby classifying harmonic branched $G$-covers of a fixed base $X$ in terms of homomorphisms from a suitable fundamental group of $X$ together with $G$-inertia structures on…
The Hamiltonian Path Problem is formulated as a continuous minimization problem on conductances assigned to an Ohmic network associated with the given graph. The objective function is a sum of two penalty terms that collectively enforce a…
The Longest Path Problem is a question of finding the maximum length between pairs of vertices of a graph. In the general case, the problem is NP-complete. However, there is a small collection of graph classes for which there exists an…
Spectral characterization of graphs is an important topic in spectral graph theory, which has received a lot of attention from researchers in recent years. It is generally very hard to show a given graph to be determined by its spectrum.…
It is well known that the graph isomorphism problem is polynomial-time reducible to the graph automorphism problem (in fact these two problems are polynomial-time equivalent). We show that, analogously, the group isomorphism problem is…
A connected matching in a graph $G$ is a matching contained in a connected component of $G$. A well-known method due to {\L}uczak reduces problems about monochromatic paths and cycles in complete graphs to problems about monochromatic…
In 1981, Erd\H{o}s and Hajnal asked whether the sum of the reciprocals of the odd cycle lengths in a graph with infinite chromatic number is necessarily infinite. Let $\mathcal{C}(G)$ be the set of cycle lengths in a graph $G$ and let…
We introduce two novel evolutionary formulations of the problem of coloring the nodes of a graph. The first formulation is based on the relationship that exists between a graph's chromatic number and its acyclic orientations. It views such…