Nowhere-harmonic colorings of graphs

Matthias Beck, Benjamin Braun

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Proper vertex colorings of a graph are related to its boundary map ∂1, also called its signed vertex-edge incidence matrix. The vertex Laplacian of a graph, L = ∂1t1, a natural extension of the boundary map, leads us to introduce nowhere-harmonic colorings and analogues of the chromatic polynomial and Stanley's theorem relating negative evaluations of the chromatic polynomial to acyclic orientations. Further, we discuss several examples demonstrating that nowhere-harmonic colorings are more complicated from an enumerative perspective than proper colorings.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)47-63
Number of pages17
JournalProceedings of the American Mathematical Society
Volume140
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2012

Funding

FundersFunder number
Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences0758321, 0810105

    Keywords

    • Boundary map
    • Chromatic polynomial
    • Graph laplacian
    • Hyperplane arrangement
    • Inside-out polytope
    • Nowhere-harmonic coloring

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • General Mathematics
    • Applied Mathematics

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