Complexity Dichotomy for List-5-Coloring with a Forbidden Induced Subgraph
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Date
2022-08-30
Authors
Hajebi, Sepehr
Li, Yanjia
Spirkl, Sophie
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Abstract
For a positive integer r and graphs G and H, we denote by G+H the disjoint union of G and H and by rH the union of r mutually disjoint copies of H. Also, we say G is H-free if H is not isomorphic to an induced subgraph of G. We use Pt to denote the path on t vertices. For a fixed positive integer k, the List-k-Coloring Problem is to decide, given a graph G and a list L(v)⊆{1,…,k} of colors assigned to each vertex v of G, whether G admits a proper coloring ϕ with ϕ(v)∈L(v) for every vertex v of G, and the k-Coloring Problem is the List-k-Coloring Problem restricted to instances with L(v)={1,…,k} for every vertex v of G. We prove that, for every positive integer r, the List-5-Coloring Problem restricted to rP3-free graphs can be solved in polynomial time. Together with known results, this gives a complete dichotomy for the complexity of the List-5-Coloring Problem restricted to H-free graphs: For every graph H, assuming P≠NP, the List-5-Coloring Problem restricted to H-free graphs can be solved in polynomial time if and only if, H is an induced subgraph of either rP3 or P5+rP1 for some positive integer r. As a hardness counterpart, we also show that the k-Coloring Problem restricted to rP4-free graphs is NP-complete for all k≥5 and r≥2.
Description
First Published in the Journal of Discrete Mathematics in Volume 36, Issue 3, 2022, published by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). Copyright © by SIAM. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited.
Keywords
coloring, list coloring, induced subgraphs, computational complexity