On the simultaneous edge coloring of graphs

Abstract

A μ-simultaneous edge coloring of graph G is a set of μ proper edge colorings of G with a same color set such that for each vertex, the sets of colors appearing on the edges incident to that vertex are the same in each coloring and no edge receives the same color in any two colorings. The μ-simultaneous edge coloring of bipartite graphs has a close relation with μ-way Latin trades. Mahdian et al. (2000) conjectured that every bridgeless bipartite graph is 2-simultaneous edge colorable. Luo et al. (2004) showed that every bipartite graphic sequence S with all its elements greater than one, has a realization that admits a 2-simultaneous edge coloring. In this paper, the μ-simultaneous edge coloring of graphs is studied. Moreover, the properties of the extremal counterexample to the above conjecture are investigated. Also, a relation between 2-simultaneous edge coloring of a graph and a cycle double cover with certain properties is shown and using this relation, some results about 2-simultaneous edge colorable graphs are obtained.