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A relation between choosability and uniquely list colorability. (English) Zbl 1100.05032
A list assignment $$L$$ of a graph $$G$$ is a function that assigns a set of colors to each vertex of $$G$$. Graph $$G$$ is (uniquely) $$L$$-colorable if there is at least (exactly) one function that assigns to each vertex $$v$$ of $$G$$ a color from $$L(v)$$ such that any two adjacent vertices are assigned distinct colors. The definitions of an edge-list assignment and a uniquely $$L$$-edge-colorable graph are analogous.
The main result of this paper says that if $$G$$ is a uniquely $$L$$-colorable graph with $$n$$ vertices and $$m$$ edges such that the sum of $$| L(v)|$$ over all vertices $$v$$ of $$G$$ equals $$n+m$$, then $$G$$ is also $$L'$$-colorable for any list assignment $$L'$$ satisfying $$| L'(v)| =| L(v)|$$ for each vertex $$v$$ of $$G$$.
The proof is based on an algebraic technique developed by N. Alon and M. Tarsi [Combinatorica 12, No. 2, 125–134 (1992; Zbl 0756.05049)]. As a corollary, it is shown that if a connected non-regular multigraph with an edge-list assignment $$L$$ satisfies $$L(\{u,v\})=\max\{d(u),d(v)\}$$ for each edge $$\{u,v\}$$, then it is not uniquely $$L$$-edge-colorable. The authors conjecture that this result holds also for any regular graph $$G$$ of degree at least two and verify it in the case that $$G$$ is bipartite.

MSC:
 05C15 Coloring of graphs and hypergraphs
Keywords:
unique list coloring
Full Text:
References:
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