A Generalized Coloring of Graphs

Ashok Amin 1, Lane Clark 2, John McSorley 3, Hui Wang 4, Grant Zhang 5
1Department of Computer Science University of Alabama in Huntsville Huntsville, AL 35899-0001
2Department of Mathematics Southern JIlinois University at Carbondale Carbondale, IL 62901-4408
3 Department of Mathematical Sciences Michigan Technological University Houghton, MI 49931-1295
4Department of Computer Science University of Alabama in Huntsville Huntsville, AL 35899-0001
5Department of Mathematical Sciences University of Alabama in Huntsville Huntsville, AL 35899-0001

Abstract

Let \(\chi^*(G)\) denote the minimum number of colors required in a coloring \(c\) of the vertices of \(G\) where for adjacent vertices \(u, v\) we have \(c(N_G[u]) \neq c(N_G[v])\) when \(N_G[u] \neq N_G[v]\) and \(c(u) \neq c(v)\) when \(N_G[u] = N_G[v]\). We show that the problem of deciding whether \(\chi^*(G) \leq n\), where \(n \geq 3\), is NP-complete for arbitrary graphs. We find \(\chi^*(G)\) for several classes of graphs, including bipartite graphs, complete multipartite graphs, as well as cycles and their complements. A sharp lower bound is given for \(\chi^*(G)\) in terms of \(\chi(G)\) and an upper bound is given for \(\chi^*(G)\) in terms of \(\Delta(G)\). For regular graphs with girth at least four, we give substantially better upper bounds for \(\chi^*(G)\) using random colorings of the
vertices.