A Note on the Complexity of Graph Recoloring

Abstract

We say that a graph is $k$-mixing if it is possible to transform any $k$-coloring into any other via a sequence of single vertex recolorings keeping a proper coloring all along. Cereceda, van den Heuvel and Johnson proved that deciding if a graph is $3$-mixing is co-NP-complete and left open the case $k\ge 4$. We prove that for every $k\ge 4$, $k$-mixing is co-NP-hard.