Vertex-Coloring 2-Edge-Weighting of Graphs

TL;DR

This paper explores conditions under which bipartite graphs can be edge-weighted with two weights to induce a proper vertex coloring, extending known results from 3-colorable graphs.

Contribution

It provides new sufficient conditions, including 3-connected bipartite graphs, for the existence of vertex-coloring 2-edge-weightings in graphs.

Findings

3-connected bipartite graphs admit vertex-coloring 2-edge-weighting

Several simple sufficient conditions for such weightings are identified

The problem relates to assigning edge weights to achieve proper vertex coloring

Abstract

A $k$-{\it edge-weighting} $w$ of a graph $G$ is an assignment of an integer weight, $w(e)\in \{1,\dots, k\}$, to each edge $e$. An edge weighting naturally induces a vertex coloring $c$ by defining $c(u)=\sum_{u\sim e} w(e)$ for every $u \in V(G)$. A $k$-edge-weighting of a graph $G$ is \emph{vertex-coloring} if the induced coloring $c$ is proper, i.e., $c(u) \neq c(v)$ for any edge $uv \in E(G)$. Given a graph $G$ and a vertex coloring $c_0$, does there exist an edge-weighting such that the induced vertex coloring is $c_0$? We investigate this problem by considering edge-weightings defined on an abelian group. It was proved that every 3-colorable graph admits a vertex-coloring $3$-edge-weighting \cite{KLT}. Does every 2-colorable graph (i.e., bipartite graphs) admit a vertex-coloring 2-edge-weighting? We obtain several simple sufficient conditions for graphs to be vertex-coloring 2-edge-weighting. In particular, we show that 3-connected bipartite graphs admit vertex-coloring 2-edge-weighting.