Triangle-free geometric intersection graphs with large chromatic number

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Publication:377499




Abstract: Several classical constructions illustrate the fact that the chromatic number of a graph can be arbitrarily large compared to its clique number. However, until very recently, no such construction was known for intersection graphs of geometric objects in the plane. We provide a general construction that for any arc-connected compact set X in mathbbR2 that is not an axis-aligned rectangle and for any positive integer k produces a family mathcalF of sets, each obtained by an independent horizontal and vertical scaling and translation of X, such that no three sets in mathcalF pairwise intersect and chi(mathcalF)>k. This provides a negative answer to a question of Gyarfas and Lehel for L-shapes. With extra conditions, we also show how to construct a triangle-free family of homothetic (uniformly scaled) copies of a set with arbitrarily large chromatic number. This applies to many common shapes, like circles, square boundaries, and equilateral L-shapes. Additionally, we reveal a surprising connection between coloring geometric objects in the plane and on-line coloring of intervals on the line.









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