Star colouring of bounded degree graphs and regular graphs

Abstract

A k-star colouring of a graph G is a function f:V(G)→{0,1,…,k−1} such that f(u)≠f(v) for every edge uv of G, and every bicoloured connected subgraph of G is a star. The star chromatic number of G, χs(G), is the least integer k such that G is k-star colourable. We prove that χs(G)≥⌈(d+4)/2⌉ for every d-regular graph G with d≥3. We reveal the structure and properties of even-degree regular graphs G that attain this lower bound. The structure of such graphs G is linked with a certain type of Eulerian orientations of G. Moreover, this structure can be expressed in the LC-VSP framework of Telle and Proskurowski (SIDMA, 1997), and hence can be tested by an FPT algorithm with the parameter either treewidth, cliquewidth, or rankwidth. We prove that for p≥2, a 2p-regular graph G is (p+2)-star colourable only if n:=|V(G)| is divisible by (p+1)(p+2). For each p≥2 and n divisible by (p+1)(p+2), we construct a 2p-regular Hamiltonian graph on n vertices which is (p+2)-star colourable.The problem k-Star Colourability takes a graph G as input and asks whether G is k-star colourable. We prove that 3-Star Colourability is NP-complete for planar bipartite graphs of maximum degree three and arbitrarily large girth. Besides, it is coNP-hard to test whether a bipartite graph of maximum degree eight has a unique 3-star colouring up to colour swaps. For k≥3, k-Star Colourability of bipartite graphs of maximum degree k is NP-complete, and does not even admit a 2o(n)-time algorithm unless ETH fails.