On list k-coloring convex bipartite graphs

Abstract

List k–Coloring (LI k-COL) is the decision problem asking if a given graph admits a proper coloring compatible with a given list assignment to its vertices with colors in {1,2,..., k}. The problem is known to be NP-hard even for k = 3 within the class of 3–regular planar bipartite graphs and for k = 4 within the class of chordal bipartite graphs. In 2015 Huang, Johnson and Paulusma asked for the complexity of LI 3-COL in the class of chordal bipartite graphs. In this paper, we give a partial answer to this question by showing that LI k-COL is polynomial in the class of convex bipartite graphs. We show first that biconvex bipartite graphs admit a multichain ordering, extending the classes of graphs where a polynomial algorithm of Enright, Stewart and Tardos (2014) can be applied to the problem. We provide a dynamic programming algorithm to solve the LI k-COL in the class of convex bipartite graphs. Finally, we show how our algorithm can be modified to solve the more general LI H-COL problem on convex bipartite graphs.