Is this true for chromatic numbers? If we take the graph G = ( V ( G ) , E (

Mohammad Cannon

Mohammad Cannon

Answered question

2022-06-22

Is this true for chromatic numbers?
If we take the graph G = ( V ( G ) , E ( G ) ) and partition the edges E(G) into k sets, forming k subgraphs of the form H i = ( V ( G ) , E ( H i ) ) for i { 1 , . . . , k } such that | E ( H i ) | 1 for each subgraph H i . Furthermore, we let χ(G) be the chromatic number of the graph G.
Does it hold that i = 1 k χ ( H i ) χ ( G )? How would we prove it? I know that this holds when k = 2. How about other values k 3?
For the case k = 2 we can take H , H ¯ G such that H = ( V ( G ) , E ( H ) ) and H ¯ = ( V ( G ) , E E ( H ) ). If the coloring C H : V ( G ) [ χ ( H ) ] is a coloring of H and C H ¯ : V ( G ) [ χ ( H ¯ ) ] is a coloring of H ¯ , we are able to construct a coloring C G of G with at most χ ( H ) χ ( H ¯ ) colors by letting C G ( v ) = ( C H ( v ) , C H ¯ ( v ) ). We can also observe that every edge (u,v) in G belongs to either H or H ¯ and hence C G ( u ) differs from C G ( v ) in at least one of the coordinates.
Can this same argument potentially be generalized for the case of partitioning G into k subgraphs such that | E ( H i ) | 1 for each subgraph?

Answer & Explanation

jmibanezla

jmibanezla

Beginner2022-06-23Added 17 answers

Step 1
Well, the exact same argument works for k 3. Take a coloring C H i : V ( G ) C i of each H i where | C i | = χ ( H i ). Then we can construct a coloring C : V ( G ) i C i by setting
C ( v ) = ( C H 1 ( v ) , C H 2 ( v ) , , C H k ( v ) ) v V ( G ) .
Step 2
As before, if an edge uv is in H i , then C(u) and C(v) will differ in the i-th coordinate, so this is a proper coloring of G with i χ ( H i ) colors.

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