Let us say a graph G has “tree-chromatic number” at most k if it admits a tree-decomposition (T, (Xt : t ∈ V (T ))) such that G[Xt] has chromatic number at most k for each t ∈ V (T ). This seems to be a new concept, and this paper is a collection of observations on the topic. In particular we show that there are graphs with tree-chromatic number two and with arbitrarily large chromatic number; ...

In this paper we define and study the distinguishing chromatic number, χD(G), of a graph G, building on the work of Albertson and Collins who studied the distinguishing number. We find χD(G) for various families of graphs and characterize those graphs with χD(G) = |V (G)|, and those trees with the maximum chromatic distingushing number for trees. We prove analogs of Brooks’ Theorem for both the...

Hall’s condition for the existence of a proper vertex list-multicoloring of a simple graph G has recently been used to de-ne the fractional Hall and Hall-condition numbers of G, hf(G) and sf(G). Little is known about hf(G), but it is known that sf(G) = max[|V (H)|= (H);H 6G], where ‘6’ means ‘is a subgraph of’ and (H) denotes the vertex independence number of H . Let f(G) and cf(G) denote the f...

Recently we investigated in [SIAM J. Optim., 19 (2008), pp. 572–591] hierarchies of semidefinite approximations for the chromatic number χ(G) of a graph G. In particular, we introduced two hierarchies of lower bounds: the “ψ”-hierarchy converging to the fractional chromatic number and the “Ψ”-hierarchy converging to the chromatic number of a graph. In both hierarchies the first order bounds are...

‎let $f$ be a proper $k$-coloring of a connected graph $g$ and‎ ‎$pi=(v_1,v_2,ldots,v_k)$ be an ordered partition of $v(g)$ into‎ ‎the resulting color classes‎. ‎for a vertex $v$ of $g$‎, ‎the color‎ ‎code of $v$ with respect to $pi$ is defined to be the ordered‎ ‎$k$-tuple $c_{{}_pi}(v)=(d(v,v_1),d(v,v_2),ldots,d(v,v_k))$‎, ‎where $d(v,v_i)=min{d(v,x):~xin v_i}‎, ‎1leq ileq k$‎. ‎if‎ ‎distinct...

The Hall-ratio ρ(G) of a graph G is the ratio of the number of vertices and the independence number maximized over all subgraphs of G. The ultimate lexicographic Hall-ratio of a graph G is defined as limn→∞ n √ ρ(G◦n), where G◦n denotes the nth lexicographic power of G (that is, n times repeated substitution of G into itself). Here we prove the conjecture of Simonyi stating that the ultimate le...