Related papers: Approximating the chromatic polynomial is as hard …

We study the complexity of computing the sign of the Tutte polynomial of a graph. As there are only three possible outcomes (positive, negative, and zero), this seems at first sight more like a decision problem than a counting problem.…

Chromatic polynomials are important objects in graph theory and statistical physics, but as a result of computational difficulties, their study is limited to graphs that are small, highly structured, or very sparse. We have devised and…

We consider the problem of approximating certain combinatorial polynomials. First, we consider the problem of approximating the Tutte polynomial of a binary matroid with parameters q>= 2 and gamma. (Relative to the classical (x,y)…

In an article [3] published recently in this journal, it was shown that when k >= 3, the problem of deciding whether the distinguishing chromatic number of a graph is at most k is NP-hard. We consider the problem when k = 2. In regards to…

We study the coloring problem: Given a graph G, decide whether $c(G) \leq q$ or $c(G) \ge Q$, where c(G) is the chromatic number of G. We derive conditional hardness for this problem for any constant $3 \le q < Q$. For $q\ge 4$, our result…

We prove that for sufficiently large K, it is NP-hard to color K-colorable graphs with less than 2^{K^{1/3}} colors. This improves the previous result of K versus K^{O(log K)} in Khot [14].

Computing the clique number and chromatic number of a general graph are well-known NP-Hard problems. Codenotti et al. (Bruno Codenotti, Ivan Gerace, and Sebastiano Vigna. Hardness results and spectral techniques for combinatorial problems…

We study the computational complexity of two related problems: recovering a planted $q$-coloring in $G(n,1/2)$, and finding efficiently verifiable witnesses of non-$q$-colorability (a.k.a. refutations) in $G(n,1/2)$. Our main results show…

In this article we consider certain well-known polynomials associated with graphs including the independence polynomial and the chromatic polynomial. These polynomials count certain objects in graphs: independent sets in the case of the…

The Tutte polynomial of a graph G is a two-variable polynomial T(G;x,y) that encodes many interesting properties of the graph. We study the complexity of the following problem, for rationals x and y: given as input a planar graph G,…

Tutte proved that if $G_{pt}$ is a planar triangulation and $P(G_{pt},q)$ is its chromatic polynomial, then $|P(G_{pt},\tau+1)| \le (\tau-1)^{n-5}$, where $\tau=(1+\sqrt{5} \,)/2$ and $n$ is the number of vertices in $G_{pt}$. Here we study…

Let $P(G,q)$ be the chromatic polynomial for coloring the $n$-vertex graph $G$ with $q$ colors, and define $W=\lim_{n \to \infty}P(G,q)^{1/n}$. Besides their mathematical interest, these functions are important in statistical physics. We…

Counting problems, determining the number of possible states of a large system under certain constraints, play an important role in many areas of science. They naturally arise for complex disordered systems in physics and chemistry, in…

The q-state Potts model can be defined on an arbitrary finite graph, and its partition function encodes much important information about that graph, including its chromatic polynomial, flow polynomial and reliability polynomial. The complex…

Robin Thomas asked whether for every proper minor-closed class C, there exists a polynomial-time algorithm approximating the chromatic number of graphs from C up to a constant additive error independent on the class C. We show this is not…

We give a new interpretation of the chromatic polynomial of a simple graph G in terms of the Kac-Moody Lie algebra with Dynkin diagram G. We show that the chromatic polynomial is essentially the q-Kostant partition function of this Lie…

This paper describes an improvement in the upper bound for the magnitude of a coefficient of a term in the chromatic polynomial of a general graph. If $a_r$ is the coefficient of the $q^r$ term in the chromatic polynomial $P(G,q)$, where…

We consider a refinement of the partition function of graph homomorphisms and present a quasi-polynomial algorithm to compute it in a certain domain. As a corollary, we obtain quasi-polynomial algorithms for computing partition functions…

Circular chromatic number, $\chi_c$ is a natural generalization of chromatic number. It is known that it is \NP-hard to determine whether or not an arbitrary graph $G$ satisfies $\chi(G) = \chi_c(G)$. In this paper we prove that this…

Graph coloring problems are a central topic of study in the theory of algorithms. We study the problem of partially coloring partially colorable graphs. For $\alpha \leq 1$ and $k \in \mathbb{Z}^+$, we say that a graph $G=(V,E)$ is…