Charles Explorer logo
๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง

Reconfiguring 10-colourings of planar graphs

Publication at Faculty of Mathematics and Physics |
2020

Abstract

Let ๐‘˜>=1 be an integer. The reconfiguration graph ๐‘…๐‘˜(๐บ) of the k-colourings of a graph G has as vertex set the set of all possible k-colourings of G and two colourings are adjacent if they differ on exactly one vertex.

A conjecture of Cereceda from 2007 asserts that for every integer โ„“>=๐‘˜+2 and k-degenerate graph G on n vertices, ๐‘…โ„“(๐บ) has diameter ๐‘‚(๐‘›2). The conjecture has been verified only when โ„“>=2๐‘˜+1.

We give a simple proof that if G is a planar graph on n vertices, then ๐‘…10(๐บ) has diameter at most ๐‘›(๐‘›+1)/2. Since planar graphs are 5-degenerate, this affirms Cereceda's conjecture for planar graphs in the case โ„“=2๏ฟฝ๏ฟฝ.