Conflict-Free Coloring on Claw-Free Graphs and Interval Graphs

Abstract

A Conflict-Free Open Neighborhood coloring, abbreviated CFON^* coloring, of a graph G = (V,E) using k colors is an assignment of colors from a set of k colors to a subset of vertices of V(G) such that every vertex sees some color exactly once in its open neighborhood. The minimum k for which G has a CFON^* coloring using k colors is called the CFON^* chromatic number of G, denoted by χ_{ON}^*(G). The analogous notion for closed neighborhood is called CFCN^* coloring and the analogous parameter is denoted by χ_{CN}^*(G). The problem of deciding whether a given graph admits a CFON^* (or CFCN^*) coloring that uses k colors is NP-complete. Below, we describe briefly the main results of this paper. 
- For k ≥ 3, we show that if G is a K_{1,k}-free graph then χ_{ON}^*(G) = O(k²log Δ), where Δ denotes the maximum degree of G. Dębski and Przybyło in [J. Graph Theory, 2021] had shown that if G is a line graph, then χ_{CN}^*(G) = O(log Δ). As an open question, they had asked if their result could be extended to claw-free (K_{1,3}-free) graphs, which are a superclass of line graphs. Since it is known that the CFCN^* chromatic number of a graph is at most twice its CFON^* chromatic number, our result positively answers the open question posed by Dębski and Przybyło.
- We show that if the minimum degree of any vertex in G is Ω(Δ/{log^ε Δ}) for some ε ≥ 0, then χ_{ON}^*(G) = O(log^{1+ε}Δ). This is a generalization of the result given by Dębski and Przybyło in the same paper where they showed that if the minimum degree of any vertex in G is Ω(Δ), then χ_{ON}^*(G)= O(logΔ).
- We give a polynomial time algorithm to compute χ_{ON}^*(G) for interval graphs G. This answers in positive the open question posed by Reddy [Theoretical Comp. Science, 2018] to determine whether the CFON^* chromatic number can be computed in polynomial time on interval graphs.
- We explore biconvex graphs, a subclass of bipartite graphs and give a polynomial time algorithm to compute their CFON^* chromatic number. This is interesting as Abel et al. [SIDMA, 2018] had shown that it is NP-complete to decide whether a planar bipartite graph G has χ_{ON}^*(G) = k where k ∈ {1, 2, 3}.