On Grundy and b-chromatic number of some families of graphs: a comparative study

TL;DR

This paper compares the Grundy and b-chromatic numbers across various graph families, establishing bounds and verifying conjectures about their relationship, highlighting differences and similarities in their behavior.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of Grundy and b-chromatic numbers, introduces bounds for these parameters, and verifies a conjecture within specific graph families.

Findings

Existence of graph sequences with unbounded Grundy number but limited b-chromatic number.

Families of graphs where Grundy number is bounded by a function of b-chromatic number.

Verification of a conjecture relating these two parameters in certain graph classes.

Abstract

The Grundy and the {\rm b}-chromatic number of graphs are two important chromatic parameters. The Grundy number of a graph $G$, denoted by $\Gamma(G)$ is the worst case behavior of greedy (First-Fit) coloring procedure for $G$ and the {\rm b}-chromatic number ${\rm{b}}(G)$ is the maximum number of colors used in any color-dominating coloring of $G$. Because the nature of these colorings are different they have been studied widely but separately in the literature. This paper presents a comparative study of these coloring parameters. There exists a sequence $\{G_n\}_{n\geq 1}$ with limited {\rm b}-chromatic number but $\Gamma(G_n)\rightarrow \infty$. We obtain families of graphs $\mathcal{F}$ such that for some adequate function $f(.)$, $\Gamma(G)\leq f({\rm{b}}(G))$, for each graph $G$ from the family. This verifies a previous conjecture for these families.