4-coloring H-free graphs when H is small

  • Authors:
  • Petr A. Golovach;DaniëL Paulusma;Jian Song

  • Affiliations:
  • -;-;-

  • Venue:
  • Discrete Applied Mathematics
  • Year:
  • 2013

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Abstract

The k-Coloring problem is to test whether a graph can be colored with at most k colors such that no two adjacent vertices receive the same color. If a graph G does not contain a graph H as an induced subgraph, then G is called H-free. For any fixed graph H on at most six vertices, it is known that 3-Coloring is polynomial-time solvable on H-free graphs whenever H is a linear forest, and NP-complete otherwise. By solving the missing case P"2+P"3, we prove the same result for 4-Coloring provided that H is a fixed graph on at most five vertices.