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.
Chromatic polynomialThe chromatic polynomial is a graph polynomial studied in algebraic graph theory, a branch of mathematics. It counts the number of graph colorings as a function of the number of colors and was originally defined by George David Birkhoff to study the four color problem. It was generalised to the Tutte polynomial by Hassler Whitney and W. T. Tutte, linking it to the Potts model of statistical physics. George David Birkhoff introduced the chromatic polynomial in 1912, defining it only for planar graphs, in an attempt to prove the four color theorem.
Threshold graphIn graph theory, a threshold graph is a graph that can be constructed from a one-vertex graph by repeated applications of the following two operations: Addition of a single isolated vertex to the graph. Addition of a single dominating vertex to the graph, i.e. a single vertex that is connected to all other vertices. For example, the graph of the figure is a threshold graph. It can be constructed by beginning with a single-vertex graph (vertex 1), and then adding black vertices as isolated vertices and red vertices as dominating vertices, in the order in which they are numbered.
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.
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.
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.
List edge-coloringIn mathematics, list edge-coloring is a type of graph coloring that combines list coloring and edge coloring. An instance of a list edge-coloring problem consists of a graph together with a list of allowed colors for each edge. A list edge-coloring is a choice of a color for each edge, from its list of allowed colors; a coloring is proper if no two adjacent edges receive the same color. A graph G is k-edge-choosable if every instance of list edge-coloring that has G as its underlying graph and that provides at least k allowed colors for each edge of G has a proper coloring.
Graph propertyIn graph theory, a graph property or graph invariant is a property of graphs that depends only on the abstract structure, not on graph representations such as particular labellings or drawings of the graph. While graph drawing and graph representation are valid topics in graph theory, in order to focus only on the abstract structure of graphs, a graph property is defined to be a property preserved under all possible isomorphisms of a graph. In other words, it is a property of the graph itself, not of a specific drawing or representation of the graph.
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.
Induced subgraphIn the mathematical field of graph theory, an induced subgraph of a graph is another graph, formed from a subset of the vertices of the graph and all of the edges (from the original graph) connecting pairs of vertices in that subset. Formally, let be any graph, and let be any subset of vertices of G. Then the induced subgraph is the graph whose vertex set is and whose edge set consists of all of the edges in that have both endpoints in . That is, for any two vertices , and are adjacent in if and only if they are adjacent in .
Greedy coloringIn the study of graph coloring problems in mathematics and computer science, a greedy coloring or sequential coloring is a coloring of the vertices of a graph formed by a greedy algorithm that considers the vertices of the graph in sequence and assigns each vertex its first available color. Greedy colorings can be found in linear time, but they do not, in general, use the minimum number of colors possible. Different choices of the sequence of vertices will typically produce different colorings of the given graph, so much of the study of greedy colorings has concerned how to find a good ordering.
Complement graphIn the mathematical field of graph theory, the complement or inverse of a graph G is a graph H on the same vertices such that two distinct vertices of H are adjacent if and only if they are not adjacent in G. That is, to generate the complement of a graph, one fills in all the missing edges required to form a complete graph, and removes all the edges that were previously there. The complement is not the set complement of the graph; only the edges are complemented. Let G = (V, E) be a simple graph and let K consist of all 2-element subsets of V.
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.
Set theorySet theory is the branch of mathematical logic that studies sets, which can be informally described as collections of objects. Although objects of any kind can be collected into a set, set theory, as a branch of mathematics, is mostly concerned with those that are relevant to mathematics as a whole. The modern study of set theory was initiated by the German mathematicians Richard Dedekind and Georg Cantor in the 1870s. In particular, Georg Cantor is commonly considered the founder of set theory.
Set (mathematics)A set is the mathematical model for a collection of different things; a set contains elements or members, which can be mathematical objects of any kind: numbers, symbols, points in space, lines, other geometrical shapes, variables, or even other sets. The set with no element is the empty set; a set with a single element is a singleton. A set may have a finite number of elements or be an infinite set. Two sets are equal if they have precisely the same elements. Sets are ubiquitous in modern mathematics.
Empty setIn mathematics, the empty set is the unique set having no elements; its size or cardinality (count of elements in a set) is zero. Some axiomatic set theories ensure that the empty set exists by including an axiom of empty set, while in other theories, its existence can be deduced. Many possible properties of sets are vacuously true for the empty set. Any set other than the empty set is called non-empty. In some textbooks and popularizations, the empty set is referred to as the "null set".
Subgraph isomorphism problemIn theoretical computer science, the subgraph isomorphism problem is a computational task in which two graphs G and H are given as input, and one must determine whether G contains a subgraph that is isomorphic to H. Subgraph isomorphism is a generalization of both the maximum clique problem and the problem of testing whether a graph contains a Hamiltonian cycle, and is therefore NP-complete. However certain other cases of subgraph isomorphism may be solved in polynomial time.
Vertex (graph theory)In discrete mathematics, and more specifically in graph theory, a vertex (plural vertices) or node is the fundamental unit of which graphs are formed: an undirected graph consists of a set of vertices and a set of edges (unordered pairs of vertices), while a directed graph consists of a set of vertices and a set of arcs (ordered pairs of vertices). In a diagram of a graph, a vertex is usually represented by a circle with a label, and an edge is represented by a line or arrow extending from one vertex to another.
Component (graph theory)In graph theory, a component of an undirected graph is a connected subgraph that is not part of any larger connected subgraph. The components of any graph partition its vertices into disjoint sets, and are the induced subgraphs of those sets. A graph that is itself connected has exactly one component, consisting of the whole graph. Components are sometimes called connected components. The number of components in a given graph is an important graph invariant, and is closely related to invariants of matroids, topological spaces, and matrices.
