Above-Guarantee Algorithm for Properly Colored Spanning Trees

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Bai, Yuhang, Bérczi, Kristóf
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866913025949171712
author Bai, Yuhang
Bérczi, Kristóf
author_facet Bai, Yuhang
Bérczi, Kristóf
contents In the Properly Colored Spanning Tree problem, we are given an edge-colored undirected graph and the goal is to find a spanning tree in which any two adjacent edges have distinct colors. Since finding such a tree is NP-hard in general, previous work often relied on minimum color degree conditions to guarantee the existence of properly colored spanning trees. While it is known that every connected edge-colored graph $G$ contains a properly colored tree of order at least $\min\{|V(G)|, 2δ^c(G)\}$, where $δ^c(G)$ denotes the minimum number of colors incident to a vertex, we study the algorithmic above-guarantee problem for properly colored trees. We provide a polynomial-time algorithm that constructs a properly colored tree of order at least $\min\{|V(G)|, 2δ^c(G)+1\}$ in a connected edge-colored graph $G$, whenever such a tree exists.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_11326
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Above-Guarantee Algorithm for Properly Colored Spanning Trees
Bai, Yuhang
Bérczi, Kristóf
Data Structures and Algorithms
Combinatorics
In the Properly Colored Spanning Tree problem, we are given an edge-colored undirected graph and the goal is to find a spanning tree in which any two adjacent edges have distinct colors. Since finding such a tree is NP-hard in general, previous work often relied on minimum color degree conditions to guarantee the existence of properly colored spanning trees. While it is known that every connected edge-colored graph $G$ contains a properly colored tree of order at least $\min\{|V(G)|, 2δ^c(G)\}$, where $δ^c(G)$ denotes the minimum number of colors incident to a vertex, we study the algorithmic above-guarantee problem for properly colored trees. We provide a polynomial-time algorithm that constructs a properly colored tree of order at least $\min\{|V(G)|, 2δ^c(G)+1\}$ in a connected edge-colored graph $G$, whenever such a tree exists.
title Above-Guarantee Algorithm for Properly Colored Spanning Trees
topic Data Structures and Algorithms
Combinatorics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.11326