PARALLEL VERTEX COLOURING OF INTERVAL GRAPHS

Abstract

Evidence is given to suggest that minimally vertex colouring an interval graph may not be in NC 1. This is done by showing that 3-colouring a linked list is NC 1-reducible to minimally colouring an interval graph. However, it is shown that an interval graph with a known interval representation and an O(1) chromatic number can be minimally coloured in NC 1. For the CRCW PRAM model, an o( log n) time, polynomial processors algorithm is obtained for minimally colouring an interval graph with o( log n) chromatic number and a known interval representation. In particular, when the chromatic number is O(( log n)1-ε), 0<ε<1, the algorithm runs in O( log n/ log log n) time. Also, an O( log n) time, O(n) cost, EREW PRAM algorithm is found for interval graphs of arbitrary chromatic numbers. The following lower bound result is also obtained: even when the left and right endpoints of the interval are separately sorted, minimally colouring an interval graph needs Ω( log n/ log log n) time, on a CRCW PRAM, with a polynomial number of processors.