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Degenerate and star colorings of graphs on surfaces. (English) Zbl 1230.05133
Summary: We study the degenerate, the star and the degenerate star chromatic numbers and their relation to the genus of graphs. As a tool we prove the following strengthening of a result of G. Fertin, A. Raspaud, and B. Reed [J. Graph Theory 47, No. 3, 163–182 (2004; Zbl 1055.05051)]: If $$G$$ is a graph of maximum degree $$\Delta$$, then $$G$$ admits a degenerate star coloring using $$O(\Delta ^{3/2})$$ colors. We use this result to prove that every graph of genus $$g$$ admits a degenerate star coloring with $$O(g^{3/5})$$ colors. It is also shown that these results are sharp up to a logarithmic factor.

##### MSC:
 05C15 Coloring of graphs and hypergraphs 05C10 Planar graphs; geometric and topological aspects of graph theory
Zbl 1055.05051
Full Text:
##### References:
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