Monochromatic cycle partitions in local edge colourings

Abstract

An edge colouring of a graph is said to be an $r$-local colouring if the edges incident to any vertex are coloured with at most $r$ colours. Generalising a result of Bessy and Thomassé, we prove that the vertex set of any $2$-locally coloured complete graph may be partitioned into two disjoint monochromatic cycles of different colours. Moreover, for any natural number $r$, we show that the vertex set of any $r$-locally coloured complete graph may be partitioned into $O(r^2\log r)$ disjoint monochromatic cycles. This generalises a result of Erdős, Gyárfás and Pyber.

10 pages