Low chromatic spanning sub(di)graphs with prescribed degree or connectivity properties

TL;DR

This paper extends classical graph and digraph connectivity results by demonstrating the existence of low chromatic spanning subgraphs with prescribed degree or connectivity properties, including optimal bounds and generalizations.

Contribution

It introduces new bounds and constructions for spanning subgraphs with specified chromatic and connectivity properties in both undirected and directed graphs, generalizing and improving prior results.

Findings

Existence of spanning k-partite subgraphs with controlled edge-connectivity

Every 7-edge-connected graph contains a spanning bipartite graph decomposing into two spanning trees

Every strong digraph has a spanning strong 3-partite subdigraph

Abstract

Generalizing well-known results of Erd\H{o}s and Lov\'asz, we show that every graph $G$ contains a spanning $k$-partite subgraph $H$ with $\lambda{}(H)\geq \lceil{}\frac{k-1}{k}\lambda{}(G)\rceil$, where $\lambda{}(G)$ is the edge-connectivity of $G$. In particular, together with a well-known result due to Nash-Williams and Tutte, this implies that every $7$-edge-connected graphs contains a spanning bipartite graph whose edge set decomposes into two edge-disjoint spanning trees. We show that this is best possible as it does not hold for infintely many $6$-edge-connected graphs. For directed graphs, it was shown in [6] that there is no $k$ such that every $k$-arc-connected digraph has a spanning strong bipartite subdigraph. We prove that every strong digraph has a spanning strong 3-partite subdigraph and that every strong semicomplete digraph on at least 6 vertices contains a spanning strong bipartite subdigraph. \jbj{We generalize this result to higher connectivities by proving} that, for every positive integer $k$, every $k$-arc-connected digraph contains a spanning $(2k+1$)-partite subdigraph which is $k$-arc-connected and this is best possible. A conjecture in [18] implies that every digraph of minimum out-degree $2k-1$ contains a spanning $3$-partite subdigraph with minimum out-degree at least $k$. We prove that the bound $2k-1$ would be best possible by providing an infinite class of digraphs with minimum out-degree $2k-2$ which do not contain any spanning $3$-partite subdigraph in which all out-degrees are at least $k$. We also prove that every digraph of minimum semi-degree at least $3r$ contains a spanning $6$-partite subdigraph in which every vertex has in- and out-degree at least $r$.