We prove that for any graph $G$ the (complex) zeros of its chromatic polynomial, $\chi_G(x)$, lie inside the disk centered at $0$ of radius $4.25 \Delta(G)$, where $\Delta(G)$ denotes the maximum degree of $G$. This improves on a recent result of Jenssen, Patel and Regts, who proved a bound of $5.94\Delta(G)$. 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.
Improved bounds on the zeros of the chromatic polynomial of graphs and claw-free graphs
Published 2025 in arXiv.org
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- Publication year
2025
- Venue
arXiv.org
- Publication date
2025-05-07
- Fields of study
Mathematics, Computer Science
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