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Minimum non-chromatic-choosable graphs with given chromatic number

Combinatorics 2025-01-01 v2

Abstract

A graph GG is called chromatic-choosable if χ(G)=ch(G)\chi(G)=ch(G). A natural problem is to determine the minimum number of vertices in a kk-chromatic non-kk-choosable graph. It was conjectured by Ohba, and proved by Noel, Reed and Wu that kk-chromatic graphs GG with V(G)2k+1|V(G)| \le 2k+1 are kk-choosable. This upper bound on V(G)|V(G)| is tight. It is known that if kk is even, then G=K3(k/2+1),1(k/21)G=K_{3 \star (k/2+1), 1 \star (k/2-1)} and G=K4,2(k1)G=K_{4, 2 \star (k-1)} are kk-chromatic graphs with V(G)=2k+2|V(G)| =2 k+2 that are not kk-choosable. Some subgraphs of these two graphs are also non-kk-choosable. The main result of this paper is that all other kk-chromatic graphs GG with V(G)=2k+2|V(G)| =2 k+2 are kk-choosable. In particular, if χ(G)\chi(G) is odd and V(G)2χ(G)+2|V(G)| \le 2\chi(G)+2, then GG is chromatic-choosable, which was conjectured by Noel.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2201.02060,
  title  = {Minimum non-chromatic-choosable graphs with given chromatic number},
  author = {Jialu Zhu and Xuding Zhu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2201.02060},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

33 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-24T08:41:55.458Z