Painting squares in \(\Delta^2-1\) shades (Q2629492)

Summary: \textit{D. W. Cranston} and \textit{S.-J. Kim} [J. Graph Theory 57, No. 1, 65--87 (2008; Zbl 1172.05023)] conjectured that if \(G\) is a connected graph with maximum degree \(\Delta\) and \(G\) is not a Moore Graph, then \(\chi_{\ell}(G^2)\leq \Delta^2-1\); here \(\chi_{\ell}\) is the list chromatic number. We prove their conjecture; in fact, we show that this upper bound holds even for online list chromatic number.