On chromatic number of colored mixed graphs

TL;DR

This paper investigates the chromatic number of colored mixed graphs, establishing tight bounds, improving existing bounds for maximum degree graphs, and exploring the relationship with acyclic chromatic number.

Contribution

It provides tight bounds for the $(m,n)$-colored mixed chromatic number, improves upper bounds for graphs with maximum degree, and relates these bounds to acyclic chromatic number.

Findings

Proved the tightness of the bound $oxed{ ext{Nešetřil and Raspaud's}}$ for the chromatic number.

Established an upper bound on the $(m,n)$-colored mixed chromatic number for graphs with maximum degree $oxed{ ext{using probabilistic methods}}$.

Constructed graphs demonstrating a lower bound on the chromatic number in terms of maximum degree.

Abstract

An $(m,n)$-colored mixed graph $G$ is a graph with its arcs having one of the $m$ different colors and edges having one of the $n$ different colors. A homomorphism $f$ of an $(m,n)$-colored mixed graph $G$ to an $(m,n)$-colored mixed graph $H$ is a vertex mapping such that if $uv$ is an arc (edge) of color $c$ in $G$, then $f(u)f(v)$ is an arc (edge) of color $c$ in $H$. The \textit{$(m,n)$-colored mixed chromatic number} $\chi_{(m,n)}(G)$ of an $(m,n)$-colored mixed graph $G$ is the order (number of vertices) of the smallest homomorphic image of $G$. This notion was introduced by Ne\v{s}et\v{r}il and Raspaud (2000, J. Combin. Theory, Ser. B 80, 147--155). They showed that $\chi_{(m,n)}(G) \leq k(2m+n)^{k-1}$ where $G$ is a $k$-acyclic colorable graph. We proved the tightness of this bound. We also showed that the acyclic chromatic number of a graph is bounded by $k^2 + k^{2 + \lceil log_{(2m+n)} log_{(2m+n)} k \rceil}$ if its $(m,n)$-colored mixed chromatic number is at most $k$. Furthermore, using probabilistic method, we showed that for graphs with maximum degree $\Delta$ its $(m,n)$-colored mixed chromatic number is at most $2(\Delta-1)^{2m+n} (2m+n)^{\Delta-1}$. In particular, the last result directly improves the upper bound $2\Delta^2 2^{\Delta}$ of oriented chromatic number of graphs with maximum degree $\Delta$, obtained by Kostochka, Sopena and Zhu (1997, J. Graph Theory 24, 331--340) to $2(\Delta-1)^2 2^{\Delta -1}$. We also show that there exists a graph with maximum degree $\Delta$ and $(m,n)$-colored mixed chromatic number at least $(2m+n)^{\Delta / 2}$.