Improved bounds on the zeros of the chromatic polynomial of graphs and claw-free graphs

Fuente: arXiv
Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Bencs, Ferenc, Regts, Guus
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
_version_ 1866912853741535232
author Bencs, Ferenc
Regts, Guus
author_facet Bencs, Ferenc
Regts, Guus
contents We prove that for any graph $G$ the (complex) zeros of its chromatic polynomial, $χ_G(x)$, lie inside the disk centered at $0$ of radius $4.25 Δ(G)$, where $Δ(G)$ denotes the maximum degree of $G$. This improves on a recent result of Jenssen, Patel and Regts, who proved a bound of $5.94Δ(G)$. Moreover, we show that for graphs of sufficiently large girth we can replace $4.25$ by $3.60$ and for claw-free graphs we can replace $4.25$ by $3.81$. Our proofs add some substantially novel ideas to those developed by Jenssen, Patel, and Regts, while building on them. A key novel ingredient for claw-free graphs is to use a representation of the coefficients of the chromatic polynomial in terms of the number of certain partial acyclic orientations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_04366
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Improved bounds on the zeros of the chromatic polynomial of graphs and claw-free graphs
Bencs, Ferenc
Regts, Guus
Combinatorics
Discrete Mathematics
Data Structures and Algorithms
We prove that for any graph $G$ the (complex) zeros of its chromatic polynomial, $χ_G(x)$, lie inside the disk centered at $0$ of radius $4.25 Δ(G)$, where $Δ(G)$ denotes the maximum degree of $G$. This improves on a recent result of Jenssen, Patel and Regts, who proved a bound of $5.94Δ(G)$. Moreover, we show that for graphs of sufficiently large girth we can replace $4.25$ by $3.60$ and for claw-free graphs we can replace $4.25$ by $3.81$. Our proofs add some substantially novel ideas to those developed by Jenssen, Patel, and Regts, while building on them. A key novel ingredient for claw-free graphs is to use a representation of the coefficients of the chromatic polynomial in terms of the number of certain partial acyclic orientations.
title Improved bounds on the zeros of the chromatic polynomial of graphs and claw-free graphs
topic Combinatorics
Discrete Mathematics
Data Structures and Algorithms
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.04366