Strong coloring
(proper) vertex coloring
In graph theory, a strong coloring, with respect to a partition of the vertices into (disjoint) subsets of equal sizes, is a (proper) vertex coloring in which every color appears exactly once in every part. A graph is strongly k-colorable if, for each partition of the vertices into sets of size k, it admits a strong coloring. When the order of the graph G is not divisible by k, we add isolated vertices to G just enough to make the order of the new graph G′ divisible by k. In that case, a strong coloring of G′ minus the previously added isolated vertices is considered a strong coloring of G.
The strong chromatic number sχ(G) of a graph G is the least k such that G is strongly k-colorable.
A graph is strongly k-chromatic if it has strong chromatic number k.
Some properties of sχ(G):
sχ(G) > Δ(G).
sχ(G) ≤ 3 Δ(G) − 1.
Asymptotically, sχ(G) ≤ 11 Δ(G) / 4 + o(Δ(G)).
Here, Δ(G) is the maximum degree.
Strong chromatic number was independently introduced by Alon (1988) and Fellows (1990).
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