On the chromatic index of a finite projective space (Q909996)

Building on some work of \textit{R. Fuji-Hara} and the third author [J. Comb. Theory, Ser. A 45, 139-147 (1987; Zbl 0633.51008)] the authors develop a recursive scheme which verifies a conjecture of Erdős, Faber, and Lovász. Namely, they prove that the number of colors needed to properly color the lines of PG(d,q), no two intersecting lines receiving the same color, is at most \(q^ d+q^{d-1}+...+q+1.\) In fact, they achieve an upper bound for this chromatic index of \(2q^{d-1}+4(q^{d- 2}+q^{d-3}+...+q+1).\) A second recursive scheme is also generated which appears to give even better results for odd d.