Back to results

Virginia Tech

An Introduction to List Colorings of Graphs

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

One of the most popular and useful areas of graph theory is graph colorings. A graph coloring is an assignment of integers to the vertices of a graph so that no two adjacent vertices are assigned the same integer. This problem frequently arises in scheduling and channel assignment applications. A list coloring of a graph is an assignment of integers to the vertices of a graph as before with the restriction that the integers must come from specific lists of available colors at each vertex. For a physical application of this problem, consider a wireless network. Due to hardware restrictions, each radio has a limited set of frequencies through which it can communicate, and radios within a certain distance of each other cannot operate on the same frequency without interfering. We model this problem as a graph by representing the wireless radios by vertices and assigning a list to each vertex according to its available frequencies. We then seek a coloring of the graph from these lists. In this thesis, we give an overview of the last thirty years of research in list colorings. We begin with an introduction of the list coloring problem, as defined by Erdös, Rubin, and Taylor in [6]. We continue with a study of variations of the problem, including cases when all the lists have the same length and cases when we allow different lengths. We will briefly mention edge colorings and overview some restricted list colors such as game colorings and L(p, q)-labelings before concluding with a list of open questions.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Science
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Mathematics
Department dc:contributor.department
Mathematics
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2009

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Baber, Courtney Leigh
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Brown, Ezra A.
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Rossi, John F.
  • Shimozono, Mark M.

Subjects

dc:subject × 3

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
etd-06082009-155312
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/33484

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Baber, Courtney Leigh. An Introduction to List Colorings of Graphs. masters thesis, Virginia Tech, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/33484