Some results on the rainbow vertex-disconnection colorings of graphs

TL;DR

This paper investigates the rainbow vertex-disconnection number in graphs, establishing bounds for certain graph classes, proving NP-completeness for specific cases, and demonstrating the difficulty of approximation within certain factors.

Contribution

It proves bounds on the rainbow vertex-disconnection number for $K_4$-minor free graphs and shows NP-completeness and inapproximability results for bipartite and split graphs.

Findings

For $K_4$-minor free graphs, $rvd(G) \,\leq\, \Delta(G)$, and the bound is sharp.

Determining $rvd(G)$ is NP-complete for bipartite and split graphs.

It is hard to approximate $rvd(G)$ within a factor of $n^{1/3 - \epsilon}$ for these graphs.

Abstract

Let $G$ be a nontrivial connected and vertex-colored graph. A vertex subset $X$ is called rainbow if any two vertices in $X$ have distinct colors. The graph $G$ is called \emph{rainbow vertex-disconnected} if for any two vertices $x$ and $y$ of $G$, there exists a vertex subset $S$ such that when $x$ and $y$ are nonadjacent, $S$ is rainbow and $x$ and $y$ belong to different components of $G-S$; whereas when $x$ and $y$ are adjacent, $S+x$ or $S+y$ is rainbow and $x$ and $y$ belong to different components of $(G-xy)-S$. For a connected graph $G$, the \emph{rainbow vertex-disconnection number} of $G$, $rvd(G)$, is the minimum number of colors that are needed to make $G$ rainbow vertex-disconnected. In this paper, we prove for any $K_4$-minor free graph, $rvd(G)\leq \Delta(G)$ and the bound is sharp. We show it is $NP$-complete to determine the rainbow vertex-disconnection number for bipartite graphs and split graphs. Moreover, we show for every $\epsilon>0$, it is impossible to efficiently approximate the rainbow vertex-disconnection number of any bipartite graph and split graph within a factor of $n^{\frac{1}{3}-\epsilon}$ unless $ZPP=NP$.