A b-coloring is a proper vertex coloring such that every color class contains a vertex, a so-called b-vertex, which sees all colors in its closed neighborhood. This type of coloring has been intensively studied from both structural and algorithmic point of view. Recently, Zaker [DAM 2025] introduced the notion of a b*-coloring, which is a b-coloring in which there is a vertex that sees a b-vertex of every color in its closed neighborhood. The b*-chromatic number is the maximum integer k such that there is a b*-coloring with k colors. We partially answer a question posed by Zaker and prove that graphs of girth at least 7 are b*-monotonic, which means that the b*-chromatic number does not increase by taking an induced subgraph. In addition, we discover a class of d-regular graphs of girth at least 5 with b*-chromatic number d+1, which strengthens a result about b-colorings by Dettlaff, Furma\'nczyk, Peterin, Roux, and Ziemann [AMC 2024]. We also study the parameterized complexity of finding b*-colorings, and show that for many structural parameters, the complexity coincides with that of finding b-colorings. In particular, the b*-chromatic number can be computed in polynomial time on any class of bounded clique-width. For most parameters, the translation from b-colorings is straightforward but for the feedback edge number, the FPT algorithm for b*-colorings is actually much simpler than that for b-colorings by Balab\'an [MFCS 2026].
A proper conflict-free coloring is a proper vertex coloring in which every nonisolated vertex has a color occurring uniquely in its open neighborhood. We prove that every graph with neither a $K_5$-minor nor a $Q_6$-minor admits such a coloring with at most seven colors, where $Q_6=K_3\vee\overline{K_3}$. In particular, this improves the previous general upper bound of eight for planar graphs. The proof combines a previously developed iterated distance-three selector construction with a general anchor-contraction lifting principle. The first supplies independently colored witnesses in closed neighborhoods, while the second combines those witnesses with a proper coloring of a suitable minor. We also develop the parity analogue of the first mechanism and show that, whenever the $K_{k+1}$ case of Hadwiger's conjecture holds, every $K_{k+1}$-minor-free graph can be proper vertex colored with $2k-1$ colors such that every nonisolated vertex has a color occurring an odd number of times in its open neighborhood.
A. Jiménez, C. Lintzmayer, M. Sambinelli· 1 citation
Given a graph $G=(V,E)$, a (proper) $k$-coloring for $G$ is a vertex coloring with $k$ colors such that every two adjacent vertices receive different colors. Suppose that the vertex set $V$ is partitioned into some groups, a proper coloring is called fair if for every color class, the difference between the number of vertices in any two groups does not exceed a given threshold. In this paper, we investigate the parameterized complexity of the fair coloring problem with respect to the structural parameters of the input graph. In particular, we prove that the problem is W[1]-hard with respect to the number of groups for forests and also graphs of modular-width two, even when the number of colors is equal to two. On the positive side, we prove that when the number of colors is equal to two, then the problem is FPT with respect to neighborhood diversity of the input graph. Moreover, in general, the problem is FPT with respect to neighborhood diversity and the number of groups. As a by-product, we prove that unary vector bin packing problem is W[1]-hard with respect to the dimension.
R. Javadi, Hossein Shokouhi· arXiv.org· 0 citations
We introduce and begin the study of sequence b-colorings, a natural generalization of the classical notion of b-colorings introduced by Irving and Manlove in 1999. In a sequence b-coloring, each color class is required to contain a prescribed minimum number of color-dominating vertices (CDVs). We establish several fundamental properties of the associated parameters, prove that every sequence is realizable, and show that the problem of deciding whether a particular graph realizes a particular sequence is NP-complete. We also characterize the sequences realized by cycles, obtain results on regular graphs with prescribed girth, and investigate colorings requiring one additional CDV, including a characterization of connected graphs with chromatic number $3$ for which no such coloring exists.
We study graph coloring with color preferences, in which each vertex ranks the available colors. In addition to assigning different colors to adjacent vertices, we require the coloring to be stable: no group of vertices can cyclically exchange their assigned colors so that each strictly prefers its new color to its original one. We define the stable chromatic number $\chi_\mathrm{stable}(G)$ of a graph $G$ as the minimum integer $k$ such that every preference profile admits a stable $k$-coloring of $G$. We establish several upper and lower bounds. In particular, for any acyclic orientation of the edges of $G$, the largest number of vertices reachable from a vertex by directed paths, including the vertex itself, is an upper bound on $\chi_\mathrm{stable}(G)$. This shows that $\chi_\mathrm{stable}(G)$ is well-defined. We also show that $O(t \log (1+n/t))$ colors suffice for an $n$-vertex graph $G$ of treewidth $t$, and complement this with a lower bound in terms of the Grundy number. Turning to the problem of finding a minimum stable coloring for a given profile, we show that stable $2$-colorability is polynomial-time solvable, whereas stable $k$-colorability is NP-complete for every fixed $k\ge 3$. Using the treewidth bound, we give a fixed-parameter tractable algorithm parameterized by treewidth.
Tomohiro Koana, Y. Oh, Hirotaka Yoneda· 0 citations
An interval edge coloring of a graph is a proper edge coloring by integers such that the colors on the edges incident with any vertex form an interval of integers. Not all graphs are interval colorable; a simple counterexample is $K_3$. The (interval coloring) deficiency of a graph $G$ is the minimum number of pendant edges whose addition to $G$ yields a graph with an interval edge coloring. In this paper, we introduce and study further measures of how far from being interval colorable a graph is. The local deficiency of a graph $G$ is the smallest number of pendant edges that needs to be added at every vertex of $G$ in order to obtain a graph with an interval edge coloring; we can think of the colors of these added edges as''locally missing''at a vertex. We also study a weaker version of this notion, the weak local deficiency, which informally is the size of a largest set of consecutive integers''locally missing''at a vertex in a proper edge coloring of $G$ minimizing this size. We compare weak local deficiency, local deficiency, and deficiency, and show that the difference can be arbitrarily large in both cases. Moreover, we give concrete examples of graphs whose weak local deficiency (and thus local deficiency) grows with the number of vertices as well as with the maximum degree. We also prove some constructive results on graphs with small weak local deficiency. In particular, all complete multipartite graphs have weak local deficiency at most $2$, and many complete multipartite graphs have weak local deficiency at most $1$. Moreover, bipartite graphs with maximum degree at most $6$, and Eulerian bipartite graphs with maximum degree at most $8$ both have weak local deficiency at most $1$. We conclude the paper by pointing to several open questions for further research.
A vertex-coloring of a graph is centered if every connected subgraph has a vertex with a unique color. A vertex-coloring of a graph is linear if every path in the graph has a vertex with a unique color. Let $\chi_{\mathrm{cen}}(G)$ and $\chi_{\mathrm{lin}}(G)$ be the minimum number of colors in a centered (resp. linear) coloring of $G$. We present a family of graphs witnessing that if $f$ is a nondecreasing function such that $\chi_{\mathrm{cen}}(G) \leq f(\chi_{\mathrm{lin}}(G))$ for every graph $G$, then $f(k) = \Omega(k^2 / \log k)$. The construction was found by OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol Pro.
Jędrzej Hodor, P. Micek· 0 citations
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