Orientation does not help with 3-coloring a grid in online-LOCAL

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Boudier, Thomas, Casagrande, Filippo, Das, Avinandan, Equi, Massimo, Lievonen, Henrik, Modanese, Augusto, Stimpert, Ronja
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866915516523741184
author Boudier, Thomas
Casagrande, Filippo
Das, Avinandan
Equi, Massimo
Lievonen, Henrik
Modanese, Augusto
Stimpert, Ronja
author_facet Boudier, Thomas
Casagrande, Filippo
Das, Avinandan
Equi, Massimo
Lievonen, Henrik
Modanese, Augusto
Stimpert, Ronja
contents The online-LOCAL and SLOCAL models are extensions of the LOCAL model where nodes are processed in a sequential but potentially adversarial order. So far, the only problem we know of where the global memory of the online-LOCAL model has an advantage over SLOCAL is 3-coloring bipartite graphs. Recently, Chang et al. [PODC 2024] showed that even in grids, 3-coloring requires $Ω(\log n)$ locality in deterministic online-LOCAL. This result was subsequently extended by Akbari et al. [STOC 2025] to also hold in randomized online-LOCAL. However, both proofs heavily rely on the assumption that the algorithm does not have access to the orientation of the underlying grid. In this paper, we show how to lift this requirement and obtain the same lower bound (against either model) even when the algorithm is explicitly given a globally consistent orientation of the grid.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_22233
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Orientation does not help with 3-coloring a grid in online-LOCAL
Boudier, Thomas
Casagrande, Filippo
Das, Avinandan
Equi, Massimo
Lievonen, Henrik
Modanese, Augusto
Stimpert, Ronja
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
Data Structures and Algorithms
The online-LOCAL and SLOCAL models are extensions of the LOCAL model where nodes are processed in a sequential but potentially adversarial order. So far, the only problem we know of where the global memory of the online-LOCAL model has an advantage over SLOCAL is 3-coloring bipartite graphs. Recently, Chang et al. [PODC 2024] showed that even in grids, 3-coloring requires $Ω(\log n)$ locality in deterministic online-LOCAL. This result was subsequently extended by Akbari et al. [STOC 2025] to also hold in randomized online-LOCAL. However, both proofs heavily rely on the assumption that the algorithm does not have access to the orientation of the underlying grid. In this paper, we show how to lift this requirement and obtain the same lower bound (against either model) even when the algorithm is explicitly given a globally consistent orientation of the grid.
title Orientation does not help with 3-coloring a grid in online-LOCAL
topic Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
Data Structures and Algorithms
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.22233