Related papers: Box complexes, neighborhood complexes, and the chr…

This paper is a study of ``topological'' lower bounds for the chromatic number of a graph. Such a lower bound was first introduced by Lov\'asz in 1978, in his famous proof of the \emph{Kneser conjecture} via Algebraic Topology. This…

Combinatorics, in particular graph theory, has a rich history of being a domain of successful applications of tools from other areas of mathematics, including topological methods. Here, we survey the study of the Hom-complexes, and the ways…

In the way of proving Kneser's conjecture, L\'{a}szl\'{o} Lov\'{a}sz settled out a new lower bound for the chromatic number. He showed that if neighborhood complex $\mathcal{N}(G)$ of a graph $G$ is topologically $k$-connected, then its…

In [MZ04] Matousek and Ziegler compared various topological lower bounds for the chromatic number. They proved that Lovasz's original bound [L78] can be restated as $\chr G \geq \ind (\B(G)) +2$. Sarkaria's bound [S90] can be formulated as…

Box complex is a $\mathbb{Z}_2$-space associated to a graph, and it is known that a certain $\mathbb{Z}_2$-homotopy invariant of it, called the $\mathbb{Z}_2$-index, gives an effective lower bound for the chromatic number. On the other…

For studying topological obstructions to graph colorings, Hom-complexes were introduced by Lov\'{a}sz. A graph $T$ is called a test graph if for every graph $H$, the $k$-connectedness of $|Hom(T, H)|$ implies $\chi (H)\geq k + 1 + \chi(T)$.…

Various simplicial complexes can be associated with a graph. Box complexes form an important families of such simplicial complexes and are especially useful for providing lower bounds on the chromatic number of the graph via some of their…

By Lovasz' proof of the Kneser conjecture, the chromatic number of a graph G is bounded from below by the index of the Z_2-space Hom(K_2,G) plus two. We show that the cohomological index of Hom(K_2,G) is also greater than the cohomological…

Kneser's 1955 conjecture -- proven by Lov\'asz in 1978 -- asserts that in any partition of the $k$-subsets of $\{1, 2, \dots, n\}$ into $n-2k-3$ parts, one part contains two disjoint sets. Schrijver showed that one can restrict to…

The Kneser conjecture (1955) was proved by Lov\'asz (1978) using the Borsuk-Ulam theorem; all subsequent proofs, extensions and generalizations also relied on Algebraic Topology results, namely the Borsuk-Ulam theorem and its extensions.…

We show that the vanishing of certain cohomology groups of polyhedral complexes imply upper bounds on Ramsey numbers. Lovasz bounded the chromatic numbers of graphs using Hom complexes. Babson and Kozlov proved Lovasz conjecture and…

A foundation is laid for a theory of combinatorial groupoids, allowing us to use concepts like ``holonomy'', ``parallel transport'', ``bundles'', ``combinatorial curvature'' etc. in the context of simplicial (polyhedral) complexes, posets,…

In [Ho] A.J. Hoffman proved a lower bound on the chromatic number of a graph in the terms of the largest and the smallest eigenvalues of its adjacency matrix. In this paper, we prove a higher dimensional version of this result and give a…

The Lovasz theta function provides a lower bound for the chromatic number of finite graphs based on the solution of a semidefinite program. In this paper we generalize it so that it gives a lower bound for the measurable chromatic number of…

The neighborhood complex $\N(G)$ of a graph $G$ were introduced by L. Lov{\'a}sz in his proof of Kneser conjecture. He proved that for any graph $G$, \begin{align} \label{abstract} \chi(G) \geq conn(\N(G))+3. \end{align} In this article we…

In the way of proving Kneser's conjecture, L\'{a}szl\'{o} Lov\'{a}sz settled out a new lower bound for the chromatic number of graphs. He showed that if the hom complex $||Hom(\mathcal{K}_2, H)||$ of a graph $H$ is topologically…

In an earlier paper, the present authors (2013) introduced the altermatic number of graphs and used Tucker's Lemma, an equivalent combinatorial version of the Borsuk-Ulam Theorem, to show that the altermatic number is a lower bound for the…

The main result of this paper is a proof of the following conjecture of Babson & Kozlov: Theorem. Let G be a graph of maximal valency d, then the complex Hom(G,K_n) is at least (n-d-2)-connected. Here Hom(-,-) denotes the polyhedral complex…

Stiebitz determined the chromatic number of generalised Mycielski graphs using the topological method of Lovasz, which invokes the Borsuk-Ulam theorem. Van Ngoc and Tuza used elementary combinatorial arguments to prove Stiebitz's theorem…

We prove multiple generalizations of Fan's combinatorial labeling result for sphere triangulations. This can be seen as a comprehensive extension of the Borsuk--Ulam theorem. In typical applications, the Borsuk--Ulam theorem gives…