Choice number of complete multipartite graphs $K_{3\ast 3,2\ast (k-5),1\ast 2}$ and $K_{4,3\ast 2,2\ast (k-6),1\ast 3}$

Abstract

A graph $G$ is called \emph{chromatic-choosable} if its choice number is equal to its chromatic number, namely $Ch(G)=\chi (G)$. Ohba has conjectured that every graph $G$ satisfying $|V(G)|\le 2\chi (G)+1$ is chromatic-choosable. Since each $k$-chromatic graph is a subgraph of a complete $k$-partite graph, we see that Ohba's conjecture is true if and only if it is true for every complete multipartite graph. However, the only complete multipartite graphs for which Ohba's conjecture has been verified are: $K_{3\ast 2,2\ast (k-3),1}$, $K_{3,2\ast (k-1)}$, $K_{s+3,2\ast (k-s-1),1\ast s}$, $K_{4,3,2\ast (k-4),1\ast 2}$, and $K_{5,3,2\ast (k-5),1\ast 3}$. In this paper, we show that Ohba's conjecture is true for two new classes of complete multipartite graphs: graphs with three parts of size 3 and graphs with one part of size 4 and two parts of size 3. Namely, we prove that $Ch(K_{3\ast 3,2\ast (k-5),1\ast 2})=k$ and $Ch(K_{4,3\ast 2,2\ast (k-6),1\ast 3})=k$ (for $k\ge 5$ and $k\ge 6$, respectively).

arXiv comment10 pages; this paper proves 2 special cases of Ohba's Conjecture, which has now been proved completely: http://arxiv.org/abs/1211.1999