Packing coloring of Sierpiński-type graphs

Abstract

The packing chromatic number $$\chi _{\rho }(G)$$ of a graph G is the smallest integer k such that the vertex set of G can be partitioned into sets $$V_i$$ , $$i\in \{1,\ldots ,k\}$$ , where each $$V_i$$ is an i-packing. In this paper, we consider the packing chromatic number of several families of Sierpinski-type graphs. While it is known that this number is bounded from above by 8 in the family of Sierpinski graphs with base 3, we prove that it is unbounded in the families of Sierpinski graphs with bases greater than 3. On the other hand, we prove that the packing chromatic number in the family of Sierpinski triangle graphs $$ST^n_3$$ is bounded from above by 31. Furthermore, we establish or provide bounds for the packing chromatic numbers of generalized Sierpinski graphs $$S^n_G$$ with respect to all connected graphs G of order 4.