A Note on the Equitable Choosability of Complete Bipartite Graphs

TL;DR

This paper investigates the equitable choosability of complete bipartite graphs, extending previous results and providing a full characterization for graphs with small partite sets, advancing understanding of equitable list coloring.

Contribution

It proves new bounds for equitable choosability of complete bipartite graphs and characterizes cases with small partite sets, broadening the theoretical framework.

Findings

Established new bounds for equitable $k$-choosability of $K_{n,m}$

Proved $K_{n,m}$ is equitably $k$-choosable under certain conditions

Provided a complete characterization for bipartite graphs with small partite sets

Abstract

In 2003 Kostochka, Pelsmajer, and West introduced a list analogue of equitable coloring called equitable choosability. A $k$-assignment, $L$, for a graph $G$ assigns a list, $L(v)$, of $k$ available colors to each $v \in V(G)$, and an equitable $L$-coloring of $G$ is a proper coloring, $f$, of $G$ such that $f(v) \in L(v)$ for each $v \in V(G)$ and each color class of $f$ has size at most $\lceil |V(G)|/k \rceil$. Graph $G$ is said to be equitably $k$-choosable if an equitable $L$-coloring of $G$ exists whenever $L$ is a $k$-assignment for $G$. In this note we study the equitable choosability of complete bipartite graphs. A result of Kostochka, Pelsmajer, and West implies $K_{n,m}$ is equitably $k$-choosable if $k \geq \max \{n,m\}$ provided $K_{n,m} \neq K_{2l+1, 2l+1}$. We prove $K_{n,m}$ is equitably $k$-choosable if $m \leq \left\lceil (m+n)/k \right \rceil(k-n)$ which gives $K_{n,m}$ is equitably $k$-choosable for certain $k$ satisfying $k < \max \{n,m\}$. We also give a complete characterization of the equitable choosability of complete bipartite graphs that have a partite set of size at most 2.