Graph coloringIn graph theory, graph coloring is a special case of graph labeling; it is an assignment of labels traditionally called "colors" to elements of a graph subject to certain constraints. In its simplest form, it is a way of coloring the vertices of a graph such that no two adjacent vertices are of the same color; this is called a vertex coloring. Similarly, an edge coloring assigns a color to each edge so that no two adjacent edges are of the same color, and a face coloring of a planar graph assigns a color to each face or region so that no two faces that share a boundary have the same color.
Edge coloringIn graph theory, a proper edge coloring of a graph is an assignment of "colors" to the edges of the graph so that no two incident edges have the same color. For example, the figure to the right shows an edge coloring of a graph by the colors red, blue, and green. Edge colorings are one of several different types of graph coloring. The edge-coloring problem asks whether it is possible to color the edges of a given graph using at most k different colors, for a given value of k, or with the fewest possible colors.
Chordal graphIn the mathematical area of graph theory, a chordal graph is one in which all cycles of four or more vertices have a chord, which is an edge that is not part of the cycle but connects two vertices of the cycle. Equivalently, every induced cycle in the graph should have exactly three vertices. The chordal graphs may also be characterized as the graphs that have perfect elimination orderings, as the graphs in which each minimal separator is a clique, and as the intersection graphs of subtrees of a tree.
Fractional coloringFractional coloring is a topic in a young branch of graph theory known as fractional graph theory. It is a generalization of ordinary graph coloring. In a traditional graph coloring, each vertex in a graph is assigned some color, and adjacent vertices — those connected by edges — must be assigned different colors. In a fractional coloring however, a set of colors is assigned to each vertex of a graph. The requirement about adjacent vertices still holds, so if two vertices are joined by an edge, they must have no colors in common.
Line graphIn the mathematical discipline of graph theory, the line graph of an undirected graph G is another graph L(G) that represents the adjacencies between edges of G. L(G) is constructed in the following way: for each edge in G, make a vertex in L(G); for every two edges in G that have a vertex in common, make an edge between their corresponding vertices in L(G). The name line graph comes from a paper by although both and used the construction before this.
Perfect graphIn graph theory, a perfect graph is a graph in which the chromatic number equals the size of the maximum clique, both in the graph itself and in every induced subgraph. In all graphs, the chromatic number is greater than or equal to the size of the maximum clique, but they can be far apart. A graph is perfect when these numbers are equal, and remain equal after the deletion of arbitrary subsets of vertices. The perfect graphs include many important families of graphs and serve to unify results relating colorings and cliques in those families.
Total coloringIn graph theory, total coloring is a type of graph coloring on the vertices and edges of a graph. When used without any qualification, a total coloring is always assumed to be proper in the sense that no adjacent edges, no adjacent vertices and no edge and either endvertex are assigned the same color. The total chromatic number χ′′(G) of a graph G is the fewest colors needed in any total coloring of G.
Bipartite graphIn the mathematical field of graph theory, a bipartite graph (or bigraph) is a graph whose vertices can be divided into two disjoint and independent sets and , that is, every edge connects a vertex in to one in . Vertex sets and are usually called the parts of the graph. Equivalently, a bipartite graph is a graph that does not contain any odd-length cycles. The two sets and may be thought of as a coloring of the graph with two colors: if one colors all nodes in blue, and all nodes in red, each edge has endpoints of differing colors, as is required in the graph coloring problem.
Perfectly orderable graphIn graph theory, a perfectly orderable graph is a graph whose vertices can be ordered in such a way that a greedy coloring algorithm with that ordering optimally colors every induced subgraph of the given graph. Perfectly orderable graphs form a special case of the perfect graphs, and they include the chordal graphs, comparability graphs, and distance-hereditary graphs. However, testing whether a graph is perfectly orderable is NP-complete.
Line perfect graphIn graph theory, a line perfect graph is a graph whose line graph is a perfect graph. Equivalently, these are the graphs in which every odd-length simple cycle is a triangle. A graph is line perfect if and only if each of its biconnected components is a bipartite graph, the complete graph K_4, or a triangular book K_1,1,n. Because these three types of biconnected component are all perfect graphs themselves, every line perfect graph is itself perfect.
Dense graphIn mathematics, a dense graph is a graph in which the number of edges is close to the maximal number of edges (where every pair of vertices is connected by one edge). The opposite, a graph with only a few edges, is a sparse graph. The distinction of what constitutes a dense or sparse graph is ill-defined, and is often represented by 'roughly equal to' statements. Due to this, the way that density is defined often depends on the context of the problem.
Split graphIn graph theory, a branch of mathematics, a split graph is a graph in which the vertices can be partitioned into a clique and an independent set. Split graphs were first studied by , and independently introduced by . A split graph may have more than one partition into a clique and an independent set; for instance, the path a–b–c is a split graph, the vertices of which can be partitioned in three different ways: the clique {a, b} and the independent set {c} the clique {b, c} and the independent set {a} the clique {b} and the independent set {a, c} Split graphs can be characterized in terms of their forbidden induced subgraphs: a graph is split if and only if no induced subgraph is a cycle on four or five vertices, or a pair of disjoint edges (the complement of a 4-cycle).
Trivially perfect graphIn graph theory, a trivially perfect graph is a graph with the property that in each of its induced subgraphs the size of the maximum independent set equals the number of maximal cliques. Trivially perfect graphs were first studied by but were named by ; Golumbic writes that "the name was chosen since it is trivial to show that such a graph is perfect." Trivially perfect graphs are also known as comparability graphs of trees, arborescent comparability graphs, and quasi-threshold graphs.
Perfect graph theoremIn graph theory, the perfect graph theorem of states that an undirected graph is perfect if and only if its complement graph is also perfect. This result had been conjectured by , and it is sometimes called the weak perfect graph theorem to distinguish it from the strong perfect graph theorem characterizing perfect graphs by their forbidden induced subgraphs. A perfect graph is an undirected graph with the property that, in every one of its induced subgraphs, the size of the largest clique equals the minimum number of colors in a coloring of the subgraph.
List of graphsThis partial list of graphs contains definitions of graphs and graph families. For collected definitions of graph theory terms that do not refer to individual graph types, such as vertex and path, see Glossary of graph theory. For links to existing articles about particular kinds of graphs, see . Some of the finite structures considered in graph theory have names, sometimes inspired by the graph's topology, and sometimes after their discoverer.
Comparability graphIn graph theory, a comparability graph is an undirected graph that connects pairs of elements that are comparable to each other in a partial order. Comparability graphs have also been called transitively orientable graphs, partially orderable graphs, containment graphs, and divisor graphs. An incomparability graph is an undirected graph that connects pairs of elements that are not comparable to each other in a partial order.
Strong perfect graph theoremIn graph theory, the strong perfect graph theorem is a forbidden graph characterization of the perfect graphs as being exactly the graphs that have neither odd holes (odd-length induced cycles of length at least 5) nor odd antiholes (complements of odd holes). It was conjectured by Claude Berge in 1961. A proof by Maria Chudnovsky, Neil Robertson, Paul Seymour, and Robin Thomas was announced in 2002 and published by them in 2006.
Tabu searchTabu search (TS) is a metaheuristic search method employing local search methods used for mathematical optimization. It was created by Fred W. Glover in 1986 and formalized in 1989. Local (neighborhood) searches take a potential solution to a problem and check its immediate neighbors (that is, solutions that are similar except for very few minor details) in the hope of finding an improved solution. Local search methods have a tendency to become stuck in suboptimal regions or on plateaus where many solutions are equally fit.
Approximation algorithmIn computer science and operations research, approximation algorithms are efficient algorithms that find approximate solutions to optimization problems (in particular NP-hard problems) with provable guarantees on the distance of the returned solution to the optimal one. Approximation algorithms naturally arise in the field of theoretical computer science as a consequence of the widely believed P ≠ NP conjecture. Under this conjecture, a wide class of optimization problems cannot be solved exactly in polynomial time.
Planar graphIn graph theory, a planar graph is a graph that can be embedded in the plane, i.e., it can be drawn on the plane in such a way that its edges intersect only at their endpoints. In other words, it can be drawn in such a way that no edges cross each other. Such a drawing is called a plane graph or planar embedding of the graph. A plane graph can be defined as a planar graph with a mapping from every node to a point on a plane, and from every edge to a plane curve on that plane, such that the extreme points of each curve are the points mapped from its end nodes, and all curves are disjoint except on their extreme points.
